Health Fairs as a Unique Teaching Methodology

Background: This article describes community-based, student-run health fairs and discusses how students learn, through a variety of processes, strategies for patient ed-ucation, prevention, and community service. Description: Medical student volunteers organize themselves into committees and spend the year prior to each fair addressing the logistics, financing, publicity, and training required for a community-based health fair. On the day of the fair, students provide an array of patient education, health promotion, and health screening ser-vices. Later, students return to a follow-up fair to review with patients results of labo-ratory studies. Evaluation: In 1997, two hundred thirteen 1st- and 2nd-year students and 18 volun-tary facultyprovided healtheducationand preventive services to 703 patients, includ-ing 450 blood pressure checks, 203 vision screenings, 71 Pap smears and breast ex-ams, and 77 immunizations. Patient satisfaction was high: 93 % of patients rated the experience as good or excellent. Conclusion:The health fair mode has proven to be an excellent way to teach clinical