Medical Students as Health and Environmental Promoters

by Salma Galal, M.D.

Performance of health education

Having very limited time and taking sustainability into consideration, students were advised at the beginning to take only one class on the health education process so that they could continue for a long period and could disseminate from child to child. However, some started with two or three classes. Acquirement of knowledge was not the only aim, it was more important to adopt healthful behavior.

The majority of the students educating school children were given one of the class hours during which they were left alone to instruct the pupils on the topic. Others had a teacher or a social worker with them. The most difficult problem they faced was controling the large classes. SHE approach was to motivate the pupils to the health education topics.

"Each time, I had to repeat the content again and again. I was disappointed that children forgot some topics completely. It is important to have the teachers also engaged in this process."

In applying pre- and post - test with control classes, students found that children from the health education class had repeated what they had learned to colleagues ( child-to-child ) in other classes. Knowledge disseminated from child to child is common.

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