The School Health Education Program (SHEP): medical students as health educators.

BACKGROUND: The School Health Education Program (SHEP) is a collaboration of the John A. Burns School of Medicine and the State of Hawai'i Department of Education that was founded to improve the health of Hawai'i's youth. This program allows premedical and medical students (collectively referred to as "medical students" from here on) to serve as health educators for high school students in six priority areas of health education. OBJECTIVES: To confirm the efficacy of this community health partnership program and to determine the factors resulting in its success. METHODS: A total of 1714 students from seven of Hawai'i's public high schools were surveyed for improvement in their content knowledge and decision-making confidence after participating in SHEP presentations. A sub-group of 235 high school students were asked about their comfort level and trust in their interactions with medical students as compared to their health teachers. RESULTS: The knowledge content and confidence in decision making increased significantly after participation in SHEP activities (p<.0001). High school students were found to be more comfortable and more trusting in learning about health topics from medical students as compared to health teachers (p<.0001). Reasons given included the medical students' content knowledge as well as their presentation methods and positive attitude. CONCLUSIONS: The unique dual role of medical students as future physicians and as students allowed them to retain their credibility as health educators while developing a strong rapport with the high school students. Through SHEP, medical students can gain valuable experience through researching and teaching health topics while high school students receive additional health knowledge through this teaching.

USMLE performances in a predominantly Asian and Pacific Islander population of medical students in a problem-based learning curriculum.

PURPOSE: To compare the USMLE performances of students of various ethnicities, predominantly Pacific Islander and Asian, at one medical school and to examine the predictive validity of MCAT scores for USMLE performance. METHOD: A total of 258 students in the graduating classes of 1996-2000 at the University of Hawai'i School of Medicine were classified by ethnicity. Demographic and performance characteristics of the groups were examined, and MCAT scores with and without undergraduate science GPA were used to predict USMLE performance. Under- and over-prediction rates were computed for each ethnic group. RESULTS: Ethnic groups did not differ significantly by gender or undergraduate GPA. Chinese, Caucasian, and Other Asian students tended to have higher MCAT scores than Hawaiian/other Pacific Islander, and Filipino students. Ethnic groups did not differ significantly in prediction of USMLE Step 1 performance. For Step 2, MCAT scores significantly over-predicted performance of Filipino students and tended to under-predict performance of Caucasian students. CONCLUSION: Although MCAT scores and science GPA were good predictors of USMLE performance, ethnic differences were found in the degrees of their predictive validity. These findings both replicate and extend results of earlier studies, and again point to the importance of exploring additional predictor variables. The authors encourage future research on the effects of the following factors on success in medical school: reading and test-taking skills, socio-cultural and environmental influences on learning, communication styles, primary language use, family support, and family responsibilities.