Impact

[LaVonna]

Hello everyone,

I am the program director of the MHA program at the University of
Southern California. I teach several classes, one entitled Cultural
Profiency in Health Management and Policy. I have taught the class
twice--once with 7 students and this spring with 20 students. Both
classes used the LaVeist text, Minority Populations and Health, with
supplemental journal articles. The student population was diverse in
many ways--race/ethnicity, citizen/international student, age, gender,
and degrees--MDs, PhDs, and masters level students in health
administration, public health, and public policy. Even so, the
majority of the students commented that much of the material covered
in the text and journal articles, they were either hearing about for
the first time; or, they were forced to get past their superficial
understanding of the issues for the first time.

In a state that faces the issue of health disparities on a daily
basis, we still have a long way to go to educate the health care
workforce. Thank you for a vehicle to more ideas on how to be more
effective in the work.

Peace...and be well

[tho...@minorityhealth.com]

I have been teaching on this topic for many years and I have largely
had the same experience. However, increasingly I am finding a small
group of students who are extremely knowledgeable. This make teaching
very interesting as you have (on the one hand) many students who have
no background, and (on the other hand) a few advanced students. I have
begun to address this issue by giving them self learning tasks where
they select (in consultation with me) a topic that the would like to
learn about. They then conduct an annotated bib on the topic. THis way
whatever the knledge-level, the student can find something that will
gain their interest and motivate them to learn.

[LaVonna]

The major writing assignment for my class asks the students to target
a healthcare facility--pharmacy, long-term care, hospital, community
clinic, etc., and given the demographic profile of their patient
population (or the geography that surrounds the place) develop a plan
to move the organization forward in its cultural competency efforts.

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[Thomas]

Do place any other parameters on the project? How do you grade the
project? What are your learning objectives?

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