The growing need for health tutorsOn my walk this morning, I noticed a very professional-looking blue sign on a lightpost near an elementary school. Since it was permanently mounted on the post at eye level for an adult - I assume it was intended for parents. The white lettering read: "Certified Teacher will Tutor your Student - one-on-one - all subjects - Ages 4-13" - and a local phone number was listed. I didn't call the number and inquire as to what "all subjects" included, but I doubt if health, healthy living, prevention of infection or prevention of sexually transmitted infections, or even science, for that matter, would be on the list. It got me thinking. We seem to value the 3R's but not the other knowledge that is essential to creating a happy and fulfilling life. I guess we think this kind of tuitoring isn't necessary because parents know those subjects and can and will convey it to their children. NOT! The parents think their kids learn "that stuff" in school and the schools assume that it was taught in the home. If the concepts are not taught and there is no role modeling of a healthy lifestyle, a gap is created. Recently, I read an interview with a fellow infection preventionist who works for a hospital in Fort Collins, CO. In response to a question: What issues or problems keep you from reducing your hospital's infection rate to the lowest possible level? - he referred to the issue of staff education and compliance with infection prevention techniques like handwashing and said: "A lot of it depends on how people (hospital employees) were raised. I'm still trying to teach people practices that their parents should have taught them." I agree. We must teach our children the basics of infection prevention before we send them to institutions for higher learning and expect them to come out with an good academic education built on a limited foundation of personal health and wellness. So what topics should be included in this basic wellness education? I think, at a minimum, it should include hand hygiene, personal hygiene, oral hygiene, food safety, housecleaning and sanitation in the home, prevention of sexually transmitted infections, and, what I call, practical microbiology- in other words, the care and maintenance of a healthy body, the home and pets. If we assume responsibility as the primary teachers of these content areas, then the schools become the tutors. (unless you are home schooling and you have total responsibility). Of course, in order to effectively teach this information and the related skills and behaviors- you must know it yourself and continuously role model healthy behaviors. But I see so many women leave a public restroom without washing their hands even mothers who have just changed their baby's diaper. This is why Nanobugs, inc has identified our #1 target audience for infection prevention information as mothers -they are usually the family health advocate, tutor, food preparer and housekeeper. The #2 audience is health professionals because they serve a tutors and and need tools for teaching and #3 audience is children ages 6-14 and their school teachers. Our mission is to entertain and educate people of all ages about practical microbiology for the purpose of infection prevention and maintaining health and wellness. Our cartoon characters - the nanobugs - entertain in order to make the education more appealing and engaging. But it isn't all cute and humorous -we work hard to maintain scientific integrity in our products and information so that people can use it to develop effective infection prevention strategies for themselves and their families. Maybe we should start thinking of the nanobugs as tutors for the subject, infection prevention.
This entry was posted on July 26th, 2008 at 12:00 am. RSS
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