I am Sara, I am a Belgian medicine student ( a year before finishing my undergraduate), currently doing a 2 month internship in India. extremely interested in community medicine and broader actually adresaing communities.
I read about you in a research project of a friend of mine (studying pedagogy). And I visited your site, saw the movie, read everything briefly...
And was inspired to do something.
Yet what?
I didn't know why I send you this. Even though I don't have a very specific aim, I want to know more and have learned that sometimes in life you just have to dare to jump.
But I wanted to let you know I am super interested.
So could you recommend some readings? Or actions I can undertake?
Doing a mentorship from very far -learning me more about it- ( if there's one thing that I learned so far, is that I learn the most by doing it myself or by personal interaction/stories)
Thanks for not neglecting my questions
Lookimg forward to any answer
Greetings
Sara Pillen
University of Ghent, Belgium
Hi Sara, and thanks for asking!
It seems to me that you have, in part, answered your own question when you say that you learn best by personal interaction. I will get to that in a minute, but first I want to acknowledge that physical health care constitutes only about 40% of the variables contributing to a healthy life and healthy community. The other variables can be aggregated under the rubric "Social Determinants of Health." The latter seems to be what you are interested in exploring, and I applauded that.
When you ask "but what," my generic response is "Invest some time in learning about community needs and resources wherever you live and work. The key skill for doing that is one you already possess: seeking out community people who can talk with you about those things. Apply your human interaction skills to exploration. Eventually, you will find specific opportunities that excite you and complement your medical skills. Then join or form coalitions to partner with the community and address those opportunities.
The portions of CTB that probably will be most relevant to your search can be found under the Community Assessment section in our Table of Contents - Chapters 4 through 6 - and Creating and Maintaining Coalitions and Partnerships. I have listed them in reverse order because it sounds to me that exploring the community first fits your situation best. Notice that both of those sections have accompanying Toolkits that are quite relevant. You may also want to look at the Stories found under Connect With Others.
Anyway, enjoy your search!