From Student to Mentor: Inspiring the Next Generation of Family Doctors

Lacey Bellefontaine, a second-year medical student at the Cape Breton Medical Campus (CBMC), is hoping to encourage local high school students to consider a career as a family doctor by introducing hands-on learning experiences. As part of a Research in Medicine (RIM) project, Lacey will develop curriculum designed to spark interest in the study of medicine, deliver it to the target audience and evaluate its impact.

“The curriculum will aim to introduce high school students to rural family medicine by teaching them basic clinical skills, such as clinical history-taking and basic physical exam techniques,” Lacey explains. “The plan is to modify existing curriculum to suit Cape Breton high schools, present it to students and collect feedback about the experience.”

RIM is a requirement for Dalhousie medical students including those enrolled at the CBMC. Students conduct ongoing, longitudinal research throughout their first three years of study. Lacey says she’s fortunate to be connected to an expert to serve as a mentor.

“Besides some undergraduate biology experiments, my research experience is limited to a five-week archaeology field course in Italy where I worked on the excavation of an imperial-era Roman villa,” Lacey says. “This was an incredible experience that sharpened my attention to detail and record keeping expertise, but working with high school students will be vastly different so I’m grateful to be connected to an experienced researcher,” she adds.

Each medical student is connected with a research mentor. In Lacey’s case, she’s matched with Stephanie Welton, an independent researcher from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, who supports rural medical research across Canada. Lacey says that her mentor played a key role in building curriculum that was originally introduced to students in Yarmouth.

“Our hope is to further develop curriculum we’re adapting from a learning package created for Yarmouth Consolidated High School,” Lacey says. “That training was developed by a medical Resident from Dalhousie Medical School, with Stephanie Welton’s support, in-response to a request from the high school’s medicine interest club.”

Lacey says that with the addition of a new medical campus in Sydney, the possibility of becoming a family physician and serving rural Nova Scotians has never been greater.

“Demonstrating that possibility to potential applicants as early as in high school can hopefully create a lasting impact and encourage them to consider medicine as a viable career option,” she says. “It will also inform them that there are medical students from their own communities who possibly went to the same school and took classes from the same teachers as them.” Lacey attended Riverview Rural High School in Sydney and hopes to share her story with current students there and be a role model for others.

“It’s exciting to think that I might encourage others from my former high school to pursue medicine,” she says. “If you see it, you can be it, as the saying goes, so I hope the learning opportunity I create as part of this research encourages them to imagine the possibility of becoming a family doctor.”