Medical students learn from elderly residents

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Contact:
Tina M Shelton, (808) 692-0897
Communications Director , Office of Dean of Medicine
Posted: Feb 14, 2014

Medical student Yuho Ono helps create a Valentine's decoration--and generate a smile
Medical student Yuho Ono helps create a Valentine's decoration--and generate a smile

They may be in only their first year of medicine, but they've already learned how to make someone's day. The first-year medical students in the WISH Program (WISH stands for Wellness Initiative for Seniors in Hawai`i) hosted a Valentine's Day-themed celebration at the Kuakini Home this week, helping the senior citizen residents there make lovely, colorful holiday cards and centerpieces.

Everywhere you looked, the students were in action. Justin Yamamoto was handing out craft supplies at one table. Ronald Hirokawa was carefully wielding a clothes iron, pressing colorful wax pieces to form the heart centers of the Valentine's centerpieces. Mariko Shimizu was helping assemble pieces of construction paper,. Yuho Ono chatted with a man whose face beamed with a broad smile. In a break room, Alain Takane mixed layers of chocolate pudding and vanilla wafers into parfaits as snacks for the seniors.

It's not just on Valentine's Day that medical students are making a difference in these seniors' lives. Each student in the WISH Program at the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) is paired with a care home resident to be their one-on-one companion for the entire year. The student and senior spend, on average, two to three hours a week together.

"The seniors adore seeing the students' young faces, and the medical students learn a lot about the unique health care needs of the elderly by spending time with the kūpuna," said JABSOM Educational Specialist Misty Yee, of the UH Department of Geriatric Medicine. "It almost seems like the student and their senior companion are family, they spend so much time together."

The Valentine’s event is one of three holiday parties that the current crop of WISH students have hosted at Kuakini Home (part of the Kuakini Medical Centerthis year. There were also parties for Halloween and Christmas.

JABSOM Geriatric Medicine Chair Dr. Kamal Masaki serves as the Faculty Director for the WISH program. But its activities are student initiated. "Two current fourth-year medical students, Marina Morie and Jenny Chan, actually started the WISH program, so that the students entering school after they did would have this learning and social opportunity with the seniors," said Yee.

First-year medical students at JABSOM are required to be involved in community service, as a way to increase their exposure to the people of all ages who they will be treating in the future. JABSOM also is one of the few U.S. medical school which also requires its future MDs to perform a clinical rotation in geriatric medicine--a plus, given the population of older adults in Hawai`i is growing faster than anywhere else in the country.

The UH JABSOM Department of Geriatric Medicine provides education for medical students, (post-MD) residents in Internal Medicine, Family Practice, OB-GYN and Psychiatry, and runs one of the largest fellowship (geriatric medicine specialty) programs in the nation.

The Kuakini Home is on the grounds of the Kuakini Health Systems in Nu`uanu.

For more information, visit: http://jabsom.hawaii.edu