FEBRUARY 19, 1998
Not everything can be taught in a classroom.
Just ask undergraduates from Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology who volunteer in a unique program at Boston Medical Center.
They can read all the books they want – or are instructed to – on health care for inner-city children. But experiencing the hurdles that doctors, nurses and public health professionals face every day is invaluable.
Project HEALTH (Helping Empower Advocate and Lead Through Health) is a community service program that allows students to join with doctors and lawyers from the Boston Medical Center Pediatrics Department, improving the health and well being of inner-city children and their parents.
Some of the volunteers are pre-med students with an inclination toward public health care, said Rebecca Onie, one of the founders of the program.
“Three years before medical school, their time is spent working with these families,” she said. “These are going to be great, great doctors.”
Under the guidance of doctors, lawyers and social workers who act as mentors, the volunteers work in 13 programs that address the social, economical, political, medical and environmental issues that impact these children’s lives.
Some of the programs include: a swimming and tutoring class for asthmatic children; mentoring teens with sickle cell anemia; implementing a car-seat education and distribution program in the pediatric emergency room; and providing information about community resources to families in the pediatric outpatient waiting room.
Frustrated with opportunities for community service work aimed at pre-law and pre-med students, Onie founded Project HEALTH in February 1996 while only a junior at Harvard University.
“I really felt like I needed a multi-disciplined approach,” Onie said.
After reading a news article on Dr. Barry Zuckerman, BMC chief of pediatrics, Onie was very impressed with him and the hospital’s approach to patient care. The article stated that BMC considers medical problems in the context of social, economic, educational and environmental factors.
Since navigating a successful pilot program, Onie was graduated from Harvard in 1997 and became the full-time director of Project HEALTH.
She now leads more than 70 volunteers – the bulk of which are from Harvard, while the others are from MIT – in the various programs.
The project is done in conjunction with the Institute of Politics and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
Beyond volunteering, each student is also assigned to a mentor at the hospital who provides project supervision, professional guidance and personal support.
To better understand the societal forces they encounter while at BMC, the volunteers meet on campus each week, often with Harvard or MIT faculty, hospital staff or community members to discuss the public policy underlying their public service.
Among the topics for reflection, students and mentors discuss the challenges of maintaining faith while engaging in social service. This is one area where the mentors are most helpful to the volunteers, Onie said.
“We wouldn’t be able to do this without the mentors,” she said.
Worlds away from the wrought-iron gates and ivy-covered walls of Harvard University, many of the volunteers are getting their first taste of what it is like for those who live in poor urban environments and the frustrations many of them have come to accept as a way of life.
“Their biggest frustration is that they can’t do a lot about housing,” said Dr. Alan Meyers, a program mentor.
One of the programs the students opened to the public last spring is the family help desk.
Upon finishing a year of research on the city’s housing, food shelter, health care and job training needs in the wake of welfare reform, a group of students set up the family help desk to meet the needs of parents who bring their children to the hospital’s pediatric unit.
“We didn’t want to be another referral program,” said Muriel Jean-Jacques, a student coordinator for Project HEALTH. “We try to put a human face on the bureaucracy that already exists.”
What volunteers have learned since opening the help desk is that the path to a broad idealistic vision of public health care and advocacy must be done in small feasible steps, Jean-Jacques said.
But while students may be frustrated with the complexities and bureaucracy they encounter when dealing with the Boston Housing Authority or helping to get a child some eyeglasses, there is plenty of optimism among them to counter any cynicism.
“I have to take my hat off to these volunteers for going against these odds,” Dr. Meyers said.