Resident Education and Advocacy for Child Health (REACH) Pathways

The University of WA offers two curricular pathways for residents interested in community pediatrics, advocacy, and global health. The goals of the REACH – Toppenish and REACH – Kisii pathways are to provide residents with opportunities to:

• recognize and address the impact of social, economic, environmental, and political factors on health disparities through experiential training and problem-based learning approaches
• work effectively within health care teams as well as with community stakeholders in domestic and international settings

The REACH approach is to enable residents to fulfill these goals by:

• Providing residents with practical public health and clinical perspectives on the management of health problems in limited-resource settings, as well strategies for their prevention
• Engaging in interdisciplinary collaborations and community partnerships to advance child health
• Providing structured support for residents who plan to make global health or community child health a central part of their career

The REACH pathways are structured as follows:

• Participants spend one month in their R2 year in a curriculum-based rotation that focuses on building skills in community and global health.
  • Participants interact with local leaders in the fields of global health, community health, population health, and advocacy.
  • Participants do weekly problem-based cases they develop and share with the rest of the program through noon conference talks and morning reports.
  • During this first month, participants also develop their own Personal Development Plan (PDP).Residents are assigned a faculty mentor to help them develop and achieve their development goals.
• During a second month in the R2 year, participants work on a structured community health needs assessment. Residents work with the Seattle Children’s Office of Community Benefit to 1) conduct a health needs assessment for Children’s advocacy efforts, 2) write up a report on findings and/or 3) critically evaluate a completed needs assessment.

In the R3 year, the two Pathways diverge and focus on projects in their respective communities:

• REACH – Kisii residents will spend eight weeks in Kisii, Kenya working alongside a University of Nairobi pediatric resident. In addition to limited clinical work, each resident pair will be involved in a community health assessment which will take them into the rural areas of Kisii.
• REACH – Toppenish residents will spend eight weeks in the agricultural community of Toppenish, WA. In addition to limited clinical work at the Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic, each resident will be involved in health assessment and advocacy in partnership with the community of Toppenish.

In order for the relationship between our program and our partners to be mutually beneficial, residents will be required to spend this 2-month block in the R3 year at the established sites. There are not opportunities to use REACH Pathway months for experiences outside of the designated sites. We understand that there are few opportunities to travel during residency. Unfortunately, we have to ask that residents not consider pathway months as times when travel abroad can be arranged (except, of course, for Kenya).

After this two-month block all residents, both REACH – Toppenish and REACH – Kisii, will present work done during their Pathway R3 months as their RCP, at Fellows Research Day and/or another conference. All residents complete an actual physical “product” that will become a part of their file. Examples of formats for this product include slides presented during an RCP presentation, final report, and/or abstract submitted to a conference.