6/12/08
SCRIPT students gain rural medical experience
By Chris Bullard

CHRISBULLARD/Manning Times

Dr. David Woodbury at Lakeside Orthopaedic in the Cypress Center explains a knee replacement to SCRIPT participant Kelly Lambright, a student at the Medical University of South Carolina.

Five students from participating universities across the state have come to Clarendon County this summer to take part in the South Carolina Rural Interdisciplinary Program of Training (SCRIPT).

The Pee Dee area began the 2008 SCRIPT session in May. This summer training program began in the early 1990s, sponsored by South Carolina Area Health Education Consortium (AHEC) as a way of addressing rural healthcare shortages.

During the week, Megan Phillips and Ashley Ravenell work at the Clarendon County Department of Social Services; Shay Mack and Grace Simmons work at the Clarendon County Department of Health and Environmental Control, Caroline DuRant works at Clarendon Memorial Hospital and Kelly Lambright works at Lakeside Orthopaedic.

“[SCRIPT] is a very good opportunity to learn and put what I’ve gotten out of class into practice,” said Phillips, a student at Winthrop University majoring in social work.

Each Friday the participants meet together and take trips to places in the Pee Dee region to familiarize themselves with the area, which have included a boat tour of Lake Marion and a tour of Roche Carolina, a pharmaceutical manufacturing company in Florence.

“The purpose of the SCRIPT program is to introduce rural healthcare to students of various health disciplines and allow them to experience living and working in a rural community with hopes of them returning to work or practice in a rural health area,” said Kam Richardson, Pee Dee SCRIPT coordinator.

SCRIPT provides opportunities for students to train in a rural clinical practice, be a part of an interdisciplinary team, collaborate in community-focused health promotion activities, network with rural health professionals and earn academic credit for their degree requirements.

According to Richardson, the program is interdisciplinary in two ways: the students come from different healthcare disciplines including nutrition, social work and nursing, and they learn to work in interdisciplinary teams where they interact with other disciplines and appreciate each role.

A part of the program is for students to work on a community project. This year the students are working with a Duke Endowment grant called “Putting Prevention Into Practice (PPIP)” by aiding 14 practice sites in Clarendon, Williamsburg, Marion and Florence counties that do preventive screenings for women 40 years old and older and men 50 years old and older.

“The SCRIPT students are doing an evaluation of how the program has gone so far in the practices,” said Dee Dee Gaines, community marketing director. “They are interviewing staff, providers and in some cases, patients. They are a neutral party asking oral questions to these groups and recording the answers.”

The SCRIPT students are working until Friday, June 13, when there will be a luncheon for the participants where they will discuss the community project and what they’ve learned through SCRIPT.