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U-M CCC - Progress Newsletter Spring 2004 Online

Family Centered Experience

Help Train Tomorrow's Medical Superstars - Without Leaving Your House

One reason the Cancer Center can offer the best cancer care anywhere is our affiliation with the U-M Medical School. Consistently ranked among the nation’s leading teaching institutions, Michigan’s Medical School boasts a roster of over 1,600 of the finest faculty in every medical specialty imaginable.

To stay ahead of the pack, U-M is launching a new program to recruit even more instructors to teach tomorrow’s doctors. And you and your family may be just the experts they’re looking for.

The program, called the Family Centered Experience, pairs first-year medical students with volunteer families. Volunteers open their homes and their lives to the students, providing real-world experience in relationship building, communication and understanding how health changes, chronic conditions, and serious illnesses affect patients and those close to them.

The medical students will not provide health services to the families. Rather, the families will serve as critical resources for students to help them to explore important connections between health care and culture, health beliefs, age, gender, support systems and other factors. U-M Medical School faculty conceived the program to help students understand and achieve a competent and comfortable balance of scientific knowledge, clinical acumen and communication skills.

You are invited to be part of this unique twist on the “house call.” The program is looking for patients with cancer or other chronic conditions to help teach tomorrow’s doctors. If you are interested and are willing to commit to visits with your assigned student pairs four to five times per year for two years, you could be a candidate for the Family Centered Experience Program, and help shape the future of medical care.

To learn more, call 1-866-337-0017 toll free, visit their web site or e-mail the program at fce@umich.edu.

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