Fellow Bio:
Sara grew up in a small town in northern Minnesota and went to UW Madison for a microbiology degree. Sara volunteered throughout her undergraduate years at the rape crisis center and at MCHC as a certified nursing assistant and an advocate for the medically underserved. Last summer, she went to Ecuador where she learned Spanish and visited several clinics. She would like to work on a project geared to helping immigrants of all cultures.

Medical Students for Minority Concerns has organized a health fair focused on bringing health information to minority and underserved communities in Madison for the past 15 years. Over the years it has been difficult to reach this population. As the chair for the 2003 MSMC health fair, I plan to restructure and relocate the health fair so it reaches the underserved and minority communities of Madison. I would also like to increase the number of services and referrals provided at the fair.

• To establish links in the South Madison community and work with community members to provide a health fair that addresses their needs.


• To move the fair to a location that will be easy for the participants to get to and that is also trusted and utilized by the South Madison community. Free transportation will be provided for people living outside of South Madison.


• To provide simple screening tests and health information in an organized manner that will be easy for the participants to use and understand.


• To provide participants with information on free and reduced cost health services (i.e. Well woman program, MEDIC, WIC).


• To provide health information to participants in a way that is interesting, relevant, and culturally competent.


• To provide an opportunity for medical students, university students, and allied health students to make connections and work together to promote the health of the underserved and minority communities of Madison.

• To learn what the health needs of the underserved and minority communities of Madison are and then restructure the health fair based on what the community wants and needs.
• To learn how to lead and organize a large, complex event and become competent in all that it involves (finance, public relations, legal, etc.).
• To be able to work with next year's chair and to create a binder of information that will enable this fair to continue in the future and to be improved upon.

I changed my project completely so the report that I did last no longer applies. The health fair actually took place on February 1st, 2003 so I am writing this report in retrospect. The fair was a success in many ways. We were able to reach a large number of uninsured people. Participants were given cholesterol and glucose screens, vision screens, BMI calculations, blood pressure screening, and were provided with the opportunity to speak with a physician. There were also a number of other agencies providing health information, contraceptive information, free massages, and information on medical assistance. Each participant was given a free gift pack and a free meal. There were ambulance tours, physics demos, and an arts and crafts corner for the children. We received very high ratings on participant surveys and most people felt they received important information and would come again to a similar event.

There were multiple challenges. The hardest thing to do was to juggle many busy med student schedules with trying to accomplish things in a timely manner.

One of the biggest challenges was creating a fair that provided accurate information to the public. Without a formal clinical advisor, it was difficult to figure out what kind of protocols we should be using. It was also difficult to train medical students before the date because of busy schedules. To address these concerns, the MSMC health fair will have a clinical advisor in the future and we are working on creating a set protocol and training session for future volunteers.

The number of Spanish-speaking participants exceeded our capacity to translate. In the future, there will be an even bigger push to find translators and we may change the fair so that each booth has a permanent translator instead of each family having a bilingual chaperone.

There are a number of other challenges and proposed solutions that I will add after the Focus Group meeting on March 13th.

Last update:

March 11, 2003

A indicates the item has been completed.

Completed	When	What	On-line
	Year 1: Beginning of Semester 2	New Project Report	Submit Report
	Year 2: Beginning of Semester 1	Project Update	Submit Update
	Year 2: Beginning of Semester 2	Project Update	Submit Update
	Year 3: Beginning of third year	Project Update	Submit Update
	Year 4: August of fourth year	2-3 page final summary of project that includes a reflective evaluation of the project process	N/A
	Ongoing	Participate in program evaluation (written and/or focus group)	View Options
	By the end of fourth year	Select poster, presentation, paper, creative option or your own idea	View Options

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© 2003 University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Family Medicine