Last month the new “Public Health Club” kicked things off with their first meeting, and now have more than 50 people signed up to participate.

“We’re working to get students from all the different programs on campus to get involved,” says the club’s executive board member, Dana Madigan.  “We’ve set our meeting time for 5:00 p.m. so that the massage therapy, acupuncture, oriental medicine and bachelor degree students can join in as well.”

The Public Health Club’s mission is “…to improve the health of people and communities, as well as equity in healthcare delivery and health status. This will be accomplished through advocating disease prevention and health promotion through evidence-based policies and practices. These broad goals will be approached from the unique Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) perspective in hopes of further integrating the many CAM professions at National University of Health Sciences as well as in the local health care arena and community-at-large.”

The group plans to include activities where students can earn community service hours, and already had volunteers working in the CROP Hunger Walk on Sunday, October, 16th  (an event that raises month for local food banks).

Dana Madigan and Dr. Jerrilyn Cambron were part of the
volunteer group that helped with the CROP Hunger Walk.

“We’ll be focusing not only on community outreach and community health, but on student health as well,” says Dana. For example, their second meeting hosted MT instructor Tony Gilroy to teach guided imagery and relaxation techniques to interested students. “We’re so focused on patient care in our studies, that we often neglect ourselves.”

Executive officers of the club who have helped get it up and running, include Dana Madigan, Mallory Hunter, Tulia Rubero and Nicole Brod.  Faculty advisors to the club include Dr. Jerrilyn Cambron, Dr. Thomas Grieve and Dr. Kelly Baltazar. National University is one of only two chiropractic educational institutions to offer a Public Health Club, and the only one to include students from diverse professional programs for this important topic.

Future meetings this trimester are scheduled for October 26th, November 9th, and November 30th, at 5:00 p.m. in Room 140 of Janse Hall.

If you’d like to get involved or receive more information, contact: [email protected]