White coats on for 60 students, TCI Clinic Exploration Program sets off for seventh year

#Providenciales, July 7, 2018 – Turks and Caicos – Over 60 students are registered for the seventh installment of the Turks & Caicos Islands Clinic Exploration Program which began back in summer 2012; and these students will rotate across various medical practices over the next several weeks.

At the opening ceremony, which was held at the Cheshire Hall Medical Center in Providenciales on Friday, two prevailing words of encouragement were presented to the students: ‘perseverance’ and ‘attentiveness’.

With an infectious excitement, this year’s crop of students collected their lab coats and set off to embark upon this year’s adventurous journey into the world of health care. And the coordinators are as excited to lead them.  One told the Magnetic media that he feels ‘like a kid in a candy store’ because “whenever you see that much knowledge together in a room it means that the future is bright.”

The Turks & Caicos Islands Clinic Exploration Program is a partnership between the Ministry of Health, Agriculture and Human Services, InterHealth Canada and various health care providers on Providenciales.  Speaking at the opening ceremony was Dr. Jameiko Harvey, who is both the founder and one of the program’s coordinators who encouraged the participants  to be like a dry sponge.

“I always tell students that whenever you come to this program and whenever you go out on rotation to go in like a dry sponge.  Because you want to soak up all of the knowledge that you’re going to get; all the ways that these individuals treat their patients you’re going to want to soak that up. That’s how you’re going to develop your style of practicing by coming into contact with these individuals.”

Chief of Medical Services, Dr. Denise Braithwaite-Tennant told the students to appreciate the unique chance and admonished the 2018 summer students to take full advantage of the opportunity.

“There are many persons who get this opportunity in many other countries but they have to pay for it.  Or that they are competing against so many persons that they don’t get that chance at all.”  Dr. Braithwaite-Tennant added, “Getting to be involved at your level in various training opportunities that even us as professional had to wait until we were in tertiary before someone offered us a CPR certification or a food safety certification, or a dissection workshop a lot of times we had to wait until we were in medical school.  So these are important and immeasurable opportunities that you have to take advantage of.”

She went on to tell the students  to never give up, pointing out that tenacity is the key using as examples: Michael Jordan Oprah Winfrey and Steve Jobs.  Dr. Braithwaite-Tennant surmised that these gifted and accomplished professionals faced great adversity in their lives or careers or both but persevered and came to dominate their respective fields.

Human Resource Manager for InterHealth Canada, Lorenzo Seymour told the students of other hospital careers, outside of being a medical practitioner.  Mr. Seymour reiterated the message of a truly special opportunity for the participants.

“One thing that I’ve always learned is that no matter what, no one can take knowledge away from you.  This is something, no matter how much money you’ve got or how famous you are; knowledge will always be with you.”

It is in its seventh year and the program was developed to create awareness of the varied careers available in both the Public and Private Health Sector in the TCI, while also providing adequate and modeled mentorship to students.

The program is set to run from the 6^th of July to the 11^th of August 2018.

By: Jean Sagesse