We started the day with a visit to the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland (https://www.rcsi.com/dublin/).
RCSI just opened a new building a few months again and it was BEAUTIFUL! Got me excited for the new Health Education Building that will be opening at the University of Kentucky soon!
Eunice Phillip (https://people.rcsi.com/eunicephillip) was our host for the day and she created a wonderful learning experience for the students. After a brief lecture, she provided the students with a particular issue to address -- housing, food insecurity or mental health. They had to identify the social determinants of health that affected each issue, propose actions to take to address the issues (complete with identifying who would be responsible for the action), and ultimately, identify 2 priority areas to recommend for funding. What was the most fun as a teacher was to watch them wrestle with ideas, work to defend their ideas when Eunice asked for more information, and be proud of the solutions they proposed (while recognizing they still have things to learn!). I knew it was a big hit when as soon as we returned from lunch, two students came up to tell me how much they enjoyed the morning. We're looking forward to future collaborations with our colleagues at RCSI -- they seem like such a natural fit.
A big thank you to Eunice and her colleagues, Helen Tobin and Brian Lynch, for such a warm welcome. This visit, and so many of the others during the trip, have been a good reminder about the importance of hospitality. Not only have folks welcomed us in and provided the content for the day, but they've offered us coffee and tea and cookies and scones and sodas -- and more importantly, they've wanted to make sure we're having the best time in Ireland. Need a recommendation for dinner? Let me give you three! Not sure where the nearest tram stop is -- not to worry, let me pull out the map. Hospitality isn't the big things -- it's all the little ones that make you feel at home when you're away from home.
After lunch, we traveled to Pavee Point to learn more about the Traveller and Roma communities in Ireland (https://www.paveepoint.ie/about-pavee-point/). At the most basic level, these groups are ethnic minorities in Ireland -- Travellers are a historically nomadic group and Roma migrated primarily from Eastern and Central European countries like Romania, Slovakia, Poland, and Ukraine. These groups have worse health outcomes on many major metrics (https://www.paveepoint.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Factsheets-Pavee-Point-TRAVELLER-HEALTH.pdf) and the goal of Pavee Point is to help determine the needs of the communities and then work to meet them (not just on health, but also on employment, education, etc). The staff were themselves members of the Traveller and Roma communities -- so, we got to hear not only a theoretical perspective of the challenges, but a real world one as well. It was a good reminder about the impact that working with a community to address their needs can have.
And, ironically, the other group there with us during our visit to Pavee Point was from just down the road at the University of Tennessee!
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