Skip to contents
In This Issue:
How many of you know someone who suffers from cardiovascular disease? This is one of several questions HMS students are asking Boston middle school students as part of a new program called “Students Teaching Early Prevention” or STEP, which was launched this year by BWH's Vascular Disease Prevention Program.
Last week, when HMS students Teresia Magnuson and Jane Unaeze asked this question of about 20 eighth graders at the Young Achievers for Science and Math Pilot School in Jamaica Plain, nearly all of them raised their hands. The hour-long session was filled with useful information about cardiovascular disease and diabetes, as well as diet and exercise recommendations on how to prevent such diseases. The classroom program concluded with a game of Jeopardy with questions reinforcing the prevention themes
“This is a novel attempt to deal with two worrisome issues. The first is the disturbing trend of increasing obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease in Americans, including children. The second is the need for physicians to better understand prevention,” said Jorge Plutzky, MD, director of BWH's Vascular Disease Prevention Program and founder of STEP.
Plutzky and endocrinologist Graham McMahon, MD launched STEP this year with about a dozen HMS students, like Magnuson and Unaeze, who volunteered to take part. The HMS students themselves learned about prevention in a series of evening programs led by Harvard faculty and included teaching techniques for teens. The program was organized by Haley Hamlin, the Vascular Disease Prevention Program coordinator.
The program has been a hit in Boston Public Schools. Eugenia Williams, a science teacher at the Young Achievers School, welcomed HMS students to two of her classes last week. “These are important messages for our students to hear, and our students enjoy very much having the Harvard students come to our classrooms,” she said.
Already city school officials are asking for return visits. In the fall, when both HMS and city middle school students return from summer vacation, the program will continue, and Plutzky expects the number of students and schools to increase. “Along with research and patient care through the Lipid/Prevention Clinic, teaching is part of our mission,” Plutzky said.