KCU opens doors to Joplin students for wellness checks

Sep. 13—For about 150 Joplin fifth graders, Wednesday held a field trip to Joplin's new medical school, a wellness check and a chance to see science in action.

For many of the second-year medical students at Kansas City University's Joplin campus, Wednesday was their first chance to work with a real patient, not a paid actor in a strict scenario.

The question was who would be more nervous, the medical students or the fifth graders.

"I'm hoping ... well, it'll probably be me," said Andrew Greek, a medical student from Joplin. "Hopefully we can make the the fifth graders comfortable and not feel super nervous. But, you know, we prepared for this, so hopefully both sides will be comfortable and we can do what we need to do."

"Probably them," said Raeson Price, 11, a fifth grader in Brian Evans' McKinley Elementary School class. "Because they have to be in front of a lot of kids."

Score 1 for Health

This screening was part of KCU's Score 1 for Health, a program that's been around in Kansas City for about 25 years. It was started in a collaboration between Kansas City Chiefs' All-Pro Safety Deron Cherry and KCU alum Dr. Bob Ritchie.

Annette Campbell, coordinator of the program in Kansas City and Joplin, said Cherry, who played for the Chiefs in the 1980s, saw a news story about a child who had been deemed as learning disabled in a school in the Kansas City area because of an undiagnosed vision problem who saw her life changed when she was diagnosed and surgery was performed on her eye.

Cherry approached the university about creating a program to expand health screening opportunities for kids.

"Her little personality just blossomed and she started having success in school, so it was a news story for that reason," Campbell said. "And it really touched Deron, and he said, 'You know what? There should be no child that is in school that is undetected for some basic problem that can be fixed.' So that's really was the impetus for Score 1 for Health."

Campbell said fifth graders from Irving, McKinley and Kelsey Norman elementary schools in Joplin went to KCU to get complete health, vision and dental screenings from second-year medical students, and take part in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, projects led by third-year medical students.

Greek said he was excited and nervous at the same time to do the screenings.

"This is our first time seeing a live patient," Greek said. "We've had our SPEs (standardized patient encounters), which are paid actors in simulations, but this is our first time seeing live patients. So it will be fun not necessarily having to stick to a script and just being able to interact and be personable while at the same time doing our best to help the students."

Campbell said this is a big transition for those second-year medical students.

"We expect to have 150 to 170 fifth graders, and we have about 150 second-year medical students," Campbell said. "We really try to provide a one-to-one experience, and this gives the medical students a chance to really take a nice amount of time and get to know and talk with their kiddo, then use the skills they've been learning to do a thorough head-to-toe exam.

"When you go to medical school, this is what you do. You learn first through lecture, and then labs or simulations. And then you start to engage with people. So Score 1 really gives that opportunity to our medical students to have that early clinical opportunity."

Campbell said the program works to give children, who may only see a doctor when they don't feel good or in situations that are stressful and chaotic, a chance to see a medical professional in an environment that was not as scary or stressful.

"Score 1 provides height and weight, vision, blood pressure, physical exam, and a dental screening and other exams," Campbell said. "These are real basic components of a well-child assessment. And they're important to measure in children because children grow and change and their health changes. When we do these on a regular basis, we're hoping we're catching problems really early and we can provide education to parents and kids about how to stay healthy. That's what makes a program like this important. It's high on the end of prevention."

Student to student

Greek, the medical student, said he was looking forward to his first exam.

"It's definitely not going to be like the SPEs because they were not 10 years old," he said. "I think kids just have such a fun spirit, an innocent spirit. They also have a sort of nervousness when it comes to being around doctors. I think this gives us a good opportunity to calm those fears and show them that, hey, we're all just people. We all just want to help you."

Madalynn Adamson, a first-year nursing student from Crowder College, was one of a number of students in her class brought to KCU on Wednesday to help with the Score 1 screenings.

Adamson, from Joplin, said she hoped to give the children a chance to see that seeing the doctor doesn't have to be a scary experience.

"Kids generally, when they go to a doctor, they don't feel good, not a good experience," Adamson said. "You've got to think with a kid, they're used to seeing purple gloves. That's the first experience of getting shots, they see those purple gloves and you're like, 'Oh, no, this is going to hurt.' We don't want kids to think they're going to get hurt when they go to the doctor. We want them to think going to the doctor is a good thing."

Price, the fifth grade student from McKinley Elementary, said he was excited to come to the KCU campus and see the inside of a medical school.

"It sounded exciting, but I didn't know really what it was until we got here," Price said. "It looks really cool on the inside. When I walked in and saw all this stuff and people, and I was like 'Man, this place is neat.'"