Campbell med school will soon offer new class for parents of newborns

A novel and innovative course at Campbell University will help student doctors navigate the complexities of parenting as they work toward becoming physicians.

The curriculum committee at the Jerry M. Wallace School of Osteopathic Medicine (CUSOM) recently approved the new course, the Newborn Caregiver Medical Selective, for third- or fourth-year medical students.

The online course, beginning soon, will be available for the mother or the father of a biological or adopted newborn baby, says Dr. Lori Langdon, clinical chair of Pediatrics and assistant professor at the med school. An independent-study elective, the course will offer full credit as a four-week clinical rotation.

Only a handful of schools across the country offer similar courses, including the University of Minnesota and the Des Moines University Medicine and Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Langdon began formulating the idea for the new course after speaking with a colleague during a meeting of the National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners.

Langdon, in fact, gave birth in her fourth year of medical school at Duke University, which she writes about in her autobiography, "Doctors Work in Air Conditioning: An Intimate look at Southern Culture and the Challenges of Rural Medicine." In the book Langdon pulls from almost 30 years' experience as a rural pediatrician, telling stories of her childhood through finding a place in academia.

The colleague, Dr Lori Kels, an allopathic physician, told Langdon that her school, the University of the Incarnate Word School of Osteopathic Medicine in San Antonio, has such a course, too. Langdon developed the requirements for approval and presented it to the Deans' Council, which approved it for the curriculum committee.

"I think it represents CUSOM well, because it specifically supports our students," Langdon says. "I think it gives a concrete example of our commitment to be collaborative, supportive, nurturing and, even in this case, innovative."

The four-week course will be geared toward newborn caregivers, either mother or father, of adopted or biological newborns. Students will receive specific academic assignments each week, including journaling about their newborns, whether that involves eating and sleeping patterns or developmental milestones.

Teaching them to be better parents, better physicians.

"Many women in medicine postpone child bearing because we're just too busy in medical school and residency, understandably, and the degree of infertility in female physicians is higher, even than is explained by the delayed child bearing.

"I hope that they'll also learn about so many things that are part of our core competencies, like public health and why we need childcare centers," says Langdon, who is also director of the Campbell University Health Center.

"I hope they learn about breastfeeding. I hope they learn about colic and the period of crying and preventing shaken baby syndrome, and about Child Protective Services. There are a lot of things I've written into the curriculum that will be both beneficial to them as a physician one day, and definitely beneficial to them as a parent."

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