Field Placement:  VA Patient Education Resource Center (PERC)
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Preceptor: Paul West
Student Name: Hillary Howard
Year: 2007

I completed my fieldwork at the Veteran Administration (VA) Hospital at two locations, West Los Angeles and Sepulveda.  I worked from June 18 to August 31 2007.  My work specifically took place in the Patient Education Resource Center (PERC) at both of these locations.  Paul West, the Los Angeles VA Coordinator for Patient Education was my preceptor.  My overall goal was to provide high quality health education to veteran patients.  I worked with over 100 patients during my time at the PERC.

I participated in many daily activities to help run the PERC.  This included providing patients with individual health counseling.  I would also give them educational handouts or computer printouts of the topics they wanted information about.  I tracked patient visits to help Paul know what types of topics we discussed the most and to help him better allocate VA monetary resources.  I learned to write patients notes in the computer medical record system.  I participated in clinics held weekly at the VA which included: smoking cessation, weight loss, and new veteran clinics.  At each of these clinics I provided health education counseling and referred veterans to I planned to health events at West Los Angeles.  The first event I worked on was a laughter yoga activity.  Patients and staff were invited to participate in a laughter yoga workshop where they learned how to do laughter yoga.  I was responsible for securing a guest speaker, recruitment of patients and staff and room setup.  I also planned a diabetes health fair.  Fifty people attend this event.  I developed the flyer used for recruitment and spent a lot of time working on the room setup.  I also taught several different classes to groups of VA patients.  I taught two classes at the Chemical Dependency unit, a program for veterans overcoming addiction to alcohol or drugs.  I also facilitated heart and lung patient support groups. 

My fieldwork helped me develop skills in patient education.  I also gained experience working with others at a government agency.

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