20
UWI TODAY 100
TH
ISSUE
– SUNDAY 17 DECEMBER, 2017
CAMPUS NEWS
We pushed thumbtacks
into the display boards, pinning
into place the four tenets of our communication thrust:
poetry, film, community service and public awareness.
Faculty Research Day at Medical Sciences allowed us to
engage with Sixth Formers and showcase the innovative
projects and passions of our staff and students.
Our Professionalism, Ethics and Communication in
Health (PECH) courses are offered in the first three years,
and focus on molding medical professionals who will treat
their clients with kindness, compassion, and empathy. It’s
more difficult than it sounds.
It’s a rough, uncertain world, and conditions are never
ideal. Working in hospitals, clinics, pharmacies or anywhere
the ill come for succor can be distressing, and can bring out
the worst in a person. This additional component of the
2017 FRD highlighted ways in which the Faculty is helping
to better understand the needs and attitudes of T&T society.
This ideal has influenced the way we expose students to
concepts of ethics and communication with the expectation
that high level critical thinking is developed and infused
with a deeper understanding of their clients. Narrative
medicine has proved successful in creating a professional
engaged and invested in community. Whether this can be
sustained throughout a long and diverse career is something
we’re keen to explore.
Our communication room had a poetry corner where
visitors composed poems on anthropomorphised diseases,
and with teenage hearts pinned firmly on their sleeves. The
results were poignant with a dark twist: smoking addiction,
anorexia and depression over lovers their parents hate and
whom they cannot relinquish.
Public awareness campaign postcards were crafted with
messages that the young obsess about: safe sex, obesity,
and good mental health. These are important insights
from young minds as to their perceptions of health and
approaches to correction that resonate with them.
Outsideour room, thereweremore than30presentations
to audiences in the form of research posters, covering an
array of clinical issues including COPD, dementia, usage
of painkillers and various types of surgery. There was
attitudinal research of the male partner’s presence during a
baby’s delivery, dietary non-compliance, knowledge of ZIKA
and self-care among those with diabetes.
This showcase of the latest developments is a centrepiece
of the day, but is far from its only draw.
Researching Humanity
GEOGRAPHY
DEPARTMENT
AND ODPM
WORK TOGETHER
The active 2017 hurricane season
undeniably showed
that disasters are becoming more frequent and intense
worldwide. To increase the awareness of disasters, the
UnitedNations recognises International Day for Disaster
Reduction (IDDR) annually on October 13. This day
focuses on promoting a global culture of risk-awareness,
disaster preparation, and the reduction of communities’
exposure to disasters.
To commemorate the IDDR, the Office of Disaster
Preparedness Management (ODPM) partnered with
Geography students of The UWI St. Augustine to pilot
the use of a hazard and vulnerability data collection
tool. The tool is referred to as the Community Risk
Information Tool (CRIT) and was engineered by the
Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency
(CDEMA) and other key stakeholders.
CRIT is intended for use in the selection of
communities for disaster risk reduction actions by
any stakeholder (e.g. Government, NGOs). It helps to
improve coordination and reduces the duplication of
effort through the identification of multiple stakeholders
working in similar areas or sectors.
For the duration of the data collection phases of the
CRIT, while collaborating with the ODPM, the students
had hands-on practical application of the theory learned
in class. The day after IDDR, data was collected in
three regional corporations in Trinidad: Diego Martin,
Sangre Grande and Tunapuna/Piarco. Qualitative
disaster susceptibility, vulnerability and capacity data
was collected. For example, through the information
provided by local residents, the tool determines the most
frequent hazards, the scale, and severity of hazards. It
also highlights the most vulnerable in the respective
study area.
Another element is the collection of hazard and
vulnerability data from indigenous people. As the
intensity and frequency of disasters increase due to
climate change, there is a growing need for indigenous
knowledge. A plethora of equations and algorithms
presently exists to calculate disaster risk and vulnerability.
Amore effective approach to reduce hazard susceptibility
is to broaden the disaster assessment process to include
in indigenous knowledge. The acknowledgement of
the significance of indigenous knowledge in deriving
mitigation, preparedness risk reduction initiatives is
growing internationally.
It was fitting that IDDR 2017 and First People’s Day
were commemorated on the same day.
Department of Geography students at UWI St. Augustine
pilot the Community Risk Information Tool (CRIT) at
the Sangre Grande Regional Corporation.
Back in the communications room, also on display
were films produced by second year MBBS students on
confidentiality that played on a loop in another part of the
room and had most entranced by the mature execution of
the topic both in production values and content.
As part of our thrust to develop medical professionals
invested in their communities, students must engage with
the underserved. This has allowed them to venture into
villages and neighbourhoods, perhaps where many had
never been before, to work with children in orphanages;
older people in assisted living; developing apps to navigate
the hospital and cut down on waiting times or re-vamping
pain charts specific to our culture and language.
Clinical photography by our resident photographer,
Dexter Superville, was projected as an installation to show
both technical aspects to his work, and how an approach
to considering the artistic merits might yield important
clinical observations: seeing an image in an unfamiliar
setting captivates and entrances, and that is an important
step in re-evaluating how we engage with health.
One role of Faculty Research Day (FRD) is public outreach
, showcasing cutting-edge research and how faculty
students learn about health, professionalism and developing a moral compass. Allison Shepherd of the Faculty of
Medical Sciences shares her role.
