Projects

Breaking The Silence

It has been drawn to our attention that the focus on healthcare accessibility to minorities such as the deaf community is still insufficient. To prevent repetition of tragedies like the Kwai Chung Hospital incident which involved the death of a deaf patient who required psychological support, we feel obliged to provide future medical personnel with the training and consciousness to enhance healthcare quality for the neglected population. 

With the above vision in mind, SCOME of AMSAHK collaborated with the SLCO Community Resources to give a four-session series of workshops teaching clinically-related sign language terms for participants together with sharing sessions where the carers and members of the deaf help us visualise and empathise with their struggles and hardships. The collaboration not only aims to offer an opportunity for students to get a taste of sign language, so that students can reach out to further their interests; ‘Breaking the Silence’ series also aim to alert participants of the immense difficulties and inconveniences the hard-of-hearing faced during their lives, so that they would be more professional and caring with attending to their patients in their future career, with the deaf’s perspectives in mind. 

Dr. Dogs Day

Depression carries the largest burden of disease among youth and adolescents globally, and suicide is the third leading cause of death among this age group. Medical students have been identified as a population particularly susceptible to mental illness. Poor mental health in medical students has been shown to affect professionalism, altruism, specialty choices and poor examination scores. These would serve to feed into a negative mental health loop, causing the students to spiral further into a worsening mental health condition.  

In view of the current landscape regarding medical students and mental health, SCOME in collaboration with Animals Asia has prepared a webinar regarding mental health first aid in addition to providing a small session discussing the role animals play in mental health improvement. The webinar includes a brief introduction of the Animals Asia's team followed by a thorough discussion regarding the importance of one’s mental health conditions. The webinar ended with a Q and A along with a virtual interactive session with the animals present in the webinar. Our collaboration aims to educate medical students about mental health challenges in youth and draw their attention to recognise the early signs of distress, while also aiding them to de-stress briefly prior to their examinations.