Community Outreach: Operation Home Front

This project is intended to broaden perspective, learn to communicate better and have some fun.

Families with children with special health care needs (chronic illnesses, disabilities, etc….) have invited medical students into their homes and communities for a hands-on, close-up view of life in these very real situations.

All medical students will receive a packet of supportive reading to orient them to the experience. There will be an orientation to the program by the Operation Homefront Coordinator.

Students are expected to complete an information form on the day of orientation and are then matched up in pairs with a family. It is then the students’ responsibility to set up two visit dates with their assigned family. The student is excused form any other clerkship duties for this experience. The arrangement of the first visit should be completed within one week.

The visits should be approximately 3-4 hours. It is expected that the students come prepared with questions. While discussion of the specific of illnesses that affect the family is appropriate, that should not be the focus of the visit. The focus rather should be on the lift experience of these families and their perception of their encounters with health care and society as a whole.

There will be a mandatory debriefing facilitated by the Operation Homefront Coordinator the last week of the Pediatric clerkship. Each student will share the pluses and minuses of their particular visit. In addition, each student it expected to submit one page describing theirs experiences and something they have learned from it.