Short, tall, talkative, shy – a wide range of personalities, sizes and presentations were part of the eighth annual Vergennes Union Middle School visit to the University of Vermont College of Medicine on November 19, 2014. Each year, the school’s seventh graders work on presentations on adolescent topics, which they present to second-year medical students as part of the Vermont Integrated Curriculum’s Generations course.
Charlotte Reback, M.D., associate professor of family medicine and director of the College of Medicine’s Generations course, delivered a welcome to Endeavor Team students and teachers in Carpenter Auditorium. Then, Endeavor Team history teacher Roberta “Cookie” Steponaitis – called Ms. “Step” by her students – spoke to the UVM medical students in the audience about working with adolescents. “As you study the species, it’s very important to not forget the child inside,” she counseled the future physicians. “Whatever those memories you bring forward from your own teen years, they are your greatest asset.”
This year’s middle-school presentations were full of interactive elements – including skits and game show-style Q&As with medical students – with a focus on many themes common to adolescence: acne, bullying, ADHD, anorexia, and concussions. Two Vergennes students presenting on anxiety associated with a doctor visit invited two medical students – Andy Liu ’17 and Christina Litsakos ‘17 – to answer quiz questions on the subject. Kai Wang ’17 competed against a mock concussed Vergennes student in another “game show” focused on facts about concussion. In a third quiz, medical students Erin Pichiotino ’17 and Amy Yu ’17 answered multiple choice questions about body odors.
A bipolar disorder presentation featured a poem (excerpted here) written by one of its presenters, who has a bipolar diagnosis: “I’m up, I’m down, I’m all around. My emotions are never in check, I’m such a wreck . . . But just because I have a label, and I may not be stable, doesn’t mean I’m not just like you . . .”
In addition, there were presentations on how to use the “Circle of Courage” approach – belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity – to deal with challenging adolescence-related issues.
Following the presentations, medical students and middle-school students held small-group discussions over lunch in the Medical Education Center.
In addition to adolescence, the College of Medicine’s seven-week-long Generations course in the Foundations level of the curriculum covers a wide range of biomedical and clinical topics from reproduction to death.