FOSTERING ST. KITTS COMMUNITY HEALTH THROUGH OUTREACH INITIATIVES
The Students for Health (SFH) organization is a student arm of the Windsor University School of Medicine, Basseterre, St. Kitts, with the goal of community outreach. This is done by providing free health screening (e.g. checking blood pressure levels, glucose levels, body mass index to determine weight status, etc.) as well as offering free medical advice when needed to the locals of St. Kitts. The organization has been in existence for over 2 years and the awareness of its services in St. Kitts grows by the day.
OBJECTIVES
The SFH organization is primarily an act of community service to the citizens of Saint Kitts. In addition, it has the following objectives:
1. To give student volunteers basic training on fundamental clinic practices like patient-doctor interaction, history taking skills, conducting physical examinations, taking blood pressure readings, heart rate, respiratory rate, anthropometric measurements like height, weight and BMI, also performing basic systemic examination.
2. To give qualified volunteers (i.e. those who pass the oral exam at the end of the training) an opportunity to interact with real patients in the real world and thus receive hands-on training that would build confidence in patient-doctor interaction in their medical careers.
3. To give qualified volunteers (i.e. those who meet our minimum of 15 hours volunteer service) an award certificate that would be a very useful addition towards voluntary activity experience in their resume which is recognized as very important towards residency application.