{"id":85114,"date":"2013-10-24T13:15:14","date_gmt":"2013-10-24T17:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=85114"},"modified":"2015-12-14T11:30:28","modified_gmt":"2015-12-14T16:30:28","slug":"health-center-marks-20th-year-celebrating-primary-care-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2013\/10\/health-center-marks-20th-year-celebrating-primary-care-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Health Center Marks 20th Year Celebrating Primary Care Week"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Primary<\/a>
Second-year UConn medical student Caroline Rogi staffs a community health fair at Community Health Services in Hartford. (Sandra Tokic for UConn Health Center)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

University of Connecticut medical, dental, nursing and pharmacy students joined forces with Quinnipiac University physician assistant students and community clinicians for a week themed \u201cVoices for Primary Care.\u201d This team-driven effort to give back to communities across Connecticut mirrors the teamwork that students pursuing primary care will participate in throughout their careers.<\/p>\n

The week\u2019s events kicked off with a banquet at the Artists\u2019 Collective on Monday. On Wednesday, 11 community health fairs across the state aimed to educate and give back to the public. \u201cLunch and Learn\u201d sessions continue all week at the three involved campus\u2019 locations in Farmington, Storrs and Hamden.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s student leaders for the Primary Care Week community health fairs are second-year medical student Hien Le and third-year pharmacy student Kaitlyn Herman, both of whom participated in the health fairs last year and are Urban Service Track<\/a> Scholars.<\/p>\n

Le says that events such as the community health fairs are an opportunity for students from different aspects of health care to work together. \u201cIt\u2019s an opportunity to gain exposure as an interdisciplinary team, which is how we will deliver care to our patients.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe patient\u2019s care isn\u2019t just one person\u2019s responsibility,\u201d says Herman. \u201cIt\u2019s a team of different specialties that come together for the teamwork needed for that patient.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Bruce E. Gould,<\/a> associate dean for primary care at the UConn School of Medicine and director of the Connecticut Area Health Education Center, is the faculty advisor involved with the community health fairs.<\/p>\n

\"2013<\/a>
Volunteers staffed a community health fair at the South End Senior Wellness Center in Hartford. (Allison England for UConn Health Center)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe, as primary care providers, need to go beyond the doors of the clinic. We need to look at why our patients don\u2019t or can\u2019t do what we want them to do. Just having an insurance card does not mean you will have access to the health care you need,\u201d says Gould.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn primary care, there is a continuous relationship with your patient,\u201d says Le, who is considering specializing in internal medicine. \u201cYou have the opportunity to look at what a patient\u2019s day to day life consists of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first question to a patient is open ended: How can I help you today? I\u2019m a doctor, but I am also a teacher. I teach patients every day because if they don\u2019t understand, how will they be able to own their illness? It\u2019s a little bit of an art form to tailor your message in a way that your patient will be able to understand,\u201d says Gould.<\/p>\n

Each of the health fairs benefited members of the community with a variety of health concerns, similar to a primary care office. Participants had the opportunity to have their blood glucose levels and their blood pressure screened. They were provided with health education materials for heart health, diabetes prevention, nutrition, oral care and medication interaction.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe patients that we saw were very excited. They were enthusiastic and asked questions that they may not usually have the chance to ask,\u201d says Herman.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the best part of health fairs,\u201d adds Le. \u201cThey come here voluntarily, so they really want to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all see unmet needs around us. Our goal is to train future practitioners who will see those needs and instead of thinking \u2018that\u2019s not my job,\u2019 make it their job. Getting students involved with giving back to the community early in their careers teaches them not only the importance, but how to actually organize and pull the pieces together,\u201d says Gould. \u201cI\u2019m a believer that if everyone did a little to help the community, it would be a better world.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Follow the <\/i>UConn Health Center<\/i><\/a> on <\/i>Facebook<\/i><\/a>, <\/i>Twitter<\/i><\/a> and <\/i>YouTube<\/i><\/a>. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Community health fairs were held across the state to help educate and give back to the public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":85125,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[45],"class_list":["post-85114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uconn-health","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 19:23:51","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85114"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107192,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85114\/revisions\/107192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/85125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85114"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=85114"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=85114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}