From Duke Prospective Health Care Club
PHCC at Translational Medicine Conference
The Prospective Health Care Club is a student-run organization formed in the fall of 2005 that is working with the Center for Research on Prospective Health Care to promote the acceptance of Prospective health Care as the new vision for the U.S. health care system. Because the implementation of its principles will take a national effort, we aim to explore Prospective Health Care from a wide variety of perspectives through symposiums and forums, and to communicate its potential benefits to others through the publication of a journal and the establishment of PHC chapters at other universities. Because those who will be in a position to change the current system are either in or about to enter college, we aim to created courses and other programs that prepare students to become leaders in this new field who can ultimately transform education at the medical school level. Finally, we seek to demonstrate the tangible benefits of Prospective Health Care through various outreach projects reflective of prospective principles, most notably those that target chronic diseases which are particularly problematic in the Durham community.
The four committees of Community Service, Curricular Involvement, Publication, and Forum form the four tiers by which PHCC aims to accomplish its mission. While a committee is responsible for the proposal and planning of projects that support this mission, all members of the club participate in all events and projects.
Forum
The Duke Prospective Health Care Club believes that public support for Prospective Health Care can be gained, and reservations removed, by debates, panel discussions, and symposiums about the definitions, legal issues, and ethics surrounding genomics, the storage and transfer of information, and other issues pertinent to Prospective Health Care. This committee aims to organize such intellectual discussions about Prospective Health Care on a regular basis. Through such forums and symposiums, we will seek to emphasize how prospective care is different from other kinds of care, including care in the current system, and to foster collaboration among people from a wide range of backgrounds, since no one field or group of people is capable of fixing the U.S. health care system by themselves.
Publication
Prospective Health Care is a cutting edge approach to medicine. Many simply have not thought of approaching medicine in this way. For current and future policy makers and leaders of medical schools to become aware of it and its potential to revolutionize health care, it needs to be emphasized in key clinical and scientific publications, as well as in journals available to undergraduates. In light of this, this committee aims to generate written discourse about the methods, results, and implementation of Prospective Health Care. The ultimate goal of the committee is to launch the nation's first Prospective Health Care journal. The first issue of the journal was released in May 30, 2007.
Curricular Involvement
The Curricular Committee aims to promote awareness and foster discussion of cultural, economic, scientific issues related to prospective health philosophies on Duke University's campus. We primarily strive to bring the prospective health model into the classroom through the development of modular course materials that focus on a specific aspect of our health system. With these materials, we are developed a House Course that was taught during the Fall Semester in 2007, and will again be taught in Fall 2008. Ultimately, we hope to create course syllabi that could be developed into a full credit undergraduate class, or adopted by professors studying subjects as diverse as Psychology, Anthropology, Health Economics, Health Economics, or Biomedical Engineering.
Community Service
Two core principles of the Prospective Health Care model are prevention and personalized care. The goal of the Community Service Committee is to employ these two principles to create and facilitate projects which help people in the Durham community to improve their nutritional habits and their sense of responsibility for their own health. Our current initiatives include research service learning projects in association with the Duke University Medical Center and community centers in Durham that will provide individuals in a personalized manner with nutritional tools to prevent many chronic diseases.
