Young stars give students a helping hand

June, 2014

Third-year students had the opportunity to conduct pediatric examinations when faculty and staff members brought their children to the college to take part in the annual Cornell Stars event.

The activity forms part of the Introductory Clerkship course, which introduces students to clinical medicine through a series of lectures and practical sessions supervised by senior faculty members.

Held on 12 June, the event brought a total of 23 ‘stars’ aged between one-month and six-years to the college’s Clinical Skills Center, along with their parents. The 36 students of the Class of 2016 observed pediatricians and family physicians as they demonstrated different approaches to interacting with children. The students then took it in turns to conduct physical examinations that included listening to the child’s breathing, monitoring their heart rate and checking general motor function.

Dr. Amal Khidir, assistant professor of pediatrics, and Dr. Mai Mahmoud, assistant professor of medicine and director of the Introductory Clerkship course, jointly coordinated the Cornell Stars event.

Dr. Mahmoud said: “The goal of the Introductory Clerkship course is to help students make the transition from basic sciences to clinical rotations and to make them comfortable with the hospital environment. In line with this goal, Cornell Stars introduces our students to children as patients, which helps them to understand how to interact with children at different developmental stages, particularly through role modeling provided by Cornell and Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) faculty. Students really appreciate the opportunity to practice their skills in a safe environment.  I am very grateful to the support of our faculty and staff who happily brought their kids to the session and worked so enthusiastically with our students.”

Dr. Khidir, who is course director of the Pediatrics Clerkship, added: “Children react in many different ways to the experience of visiting the doctor. Some may be compliant and easy to deal with, while others can be shy and withdrawn or hyperactive and fidgety. The Cornell Stars event provides a friendly, relaxed atmosphere in which trainee physicians can develop a ‘tool box’ of skills that they can use to put the child at ease, and can observe the many different styles physicians use when working with children. Through experiences like Cornell Stars we aim to help our students develop their own unique styles that work for them.”

The students have previously examined adult standardized patients at the university and have visited clinics at HMC hospitals, but for many of them this was the first time they had worked with children.

Student Ikram Al Lawati said: “The sessions have been very useful because I am not used to communicating with children in a clinical environment and I was a little uncertain about how to do it. The skills are very different from those we use when we interact with adult patients, and it has been good to practice techniques to maintain the child’s attention and keep them on task so that you can complete the examination.”

The young stars were rewarded for volunteering to take part in the session with healthy snacks and a gift to take home with them. Staff member Hussein Abdelkarim, immigration coordinator in the human resources division, brought his two-year-old daughter Noor to the event.

He said: “As staff members we are happy to bring our children along because this experience is really good for the students and it is a way for us to contribute to their training. I think the students benefit from meeting the children and learning how to keep them calm, which they managed to do with Noor simply by being kind and gentle with her.”

Dr. Khidir added: “We are extremely grateful to all of our staff and faculty who were kind enough to bring their children along, and also to the children, who were very patient and accurately demonstrated the diverse range of behaviors that the students are likely to encounter when they work with children. Their contribution made the event an extremely beneficial and useful training experience for our students.”

HMC doctors who took part in the event were: Dr. Hussain Parappil, Dr. Magda Wagdy, Dr. Madeeha Kamal, Dr. Amira Elfaki Mustafa, Dr. Mehdi Adeli, and Dr. Amal Haider (fellow).

Doctors from WCMC-Q who participated were: Dr. Marcellina Mian, professor of pediatrics and associate dean for medical education; Dr. Stella Major, associate professor of clinical medicine and director of the Medicine, Patients and Society II course; and Dr. Amal Khidir.