Camelot students play with ‘mucus’ during kid-friendly program
WHAT: Students with asthma at Camelot Elementary School will participate in hands-on learning during the 2+2 Asthma Education Crew (a mini Asthma Blow Out) at their school. The children will visit six stations, including one where they create fake “mucus” and try to push it through a toilet paper roll to show how real mucus blocks their airways. The children will attend various stations on asthma management using videos, a Radical Randy doll and other learning tools to help them understand their anatomy and the disease. The Radical Randy doll includes a rib cage which opens to reveal lungs, healthy and inflamed airways, and removable, inflatable bronchioles. The students will learn strategies to avoid their asthma triggers and understand how their medication works. The evening will end with the elementary students performing an asthma play to their parents.
WHEN: Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2012
3 to 6 p.m.: Interactive teaching with children
6 to 7 p.m.: A pediatric pulmonologist and a certified asthma educator will speak with parents. Children will learn a play about asthma and perform after the parent education.
WHERE: Camelot Elementary School, 7410 Ray Bon, San Antonio, 78218
The school is on Ray Bon, east of I-35, north of Eisenhauer Road and south of Walzem Road.
WHO: UT Health Science Center students, who are studying to be respiratory therapists, have the potential to reach the 100 children with asthma at Camelot Elementary.
NOTES: De De Gardner, M.S.H.P., RRT, FAARC, chair of the Department of Respiratory Care, received the Robert McCaffree, M.D., Master FCCP Humanitarian Award of $11,000 from the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) and the CHEST Foundation for the 2+2 Asthma Education Crew-Asthma Education in the Elementary School Environment using the Asthma Blow Out model. This program also is supported by a community service learning grant from the Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics at the UT Health Science Center San Antonio. Respiratory care faculty and students are bringing the educational program to five elementary schools in the North East I.S.D.
The Asthma Blow Out model, created by Diane Rhodes B.B.A., RRT, AE-C, will teach the elementary students how to use inhalers, take their medicine, identify early warning signs and recognize asthma triggers. The university students help the youngsters so they can participate in sports and exercise like other youngsters. The children can learn how to live normal lives with asthma.
As part of this asthma education program, the UT Health Science Center faculty and staff will go to four more elementary schools, which all have a high prevalence of students with asthma, in the NEISD.
The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, one of the country’s leading health sciences universities, ranks in the top 3 percent of all institutions worldwide receiving federal funding. Research and other sponsored program activity totaled $231 million in fiscal year 2011. The university’s schools of medicine, nursing, dentistry, health professions and graduate biomedical sciences have produced approximately 28,000 graduates. The $736 million operating budget supports eight campuses in San Antonio, Laredo, Harlingen and Edinburg. For more information on the many ways “We make lives better®,” visit www.uthscsa.edu.