This has been an awesome week for my externship at the Southern Regional Area Health Education Center or SR-AHEC. Part of my externship was to shadow the AHEC’s Medical and Pharm D residents.

I had the chance to work with Dr.  Susan Miller who oversees the residents.  With Dr. Miller’s expertise, I had the opportunity to shadow real-world health providers in action inside Cape Fear Valley Hospital. It was so cool and so surreal for me, as a science teacher to sit with the residents during medical “rounds”. It was amazing how the residents work together in analyzing and diagnosing a particular disease or health condition during “rounds”.

This externship provided an excellent idea for me to integrate health literacy in the 8th grade science curriculum. Specifically, this fits the curriculum on analyzing data to determine trends and to determine how infectious disease may spread. I will use this real-world experience to teach and differentiate the curriculum about infectious diseases. I will challenge my students to think like health providers -doctors, nurses and pharm doctors or health consumers- patients. Students will learn about health literacy and apply what they learn about health literacy by becoming an  advocate for health literacy in their community.

Can’t wait for next week…