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Monash graduate Dr Gao Yuan has played a pivotal role in adapting the mentor scheme to the Chinese. |
An idea developed by a group of Monash University medical students could end up becoming the basis of a giant preventive medicine program delivering a message of safe sex to hundreds of millions of people in China.
It's all to do with using students to educate their university and high school peers about STDs, AIDS and safe sex. After being successfully employed in Australia, the 'peer education' is now being trialled in Chinese universities in a pilot program supported by European pharmaceutical companies Organon and Schering AG, and British condom manufacturer London International. The method is being assessed as a means of containing the spread of AIDS, a significant problem in China.
The story started more than a decade ago, when Professor Roger Short, then professor of Reproductive Biology at Monash, began a course to teach medical students the facts of life in the AIDS era. No-one else was doing it, he says. Then, in 1991, a group of the medical students approached Professor Short with a blunt message. It's all very well for us to learn about HIV and how to avoid it, they said, but what about the rest of the university community? So began the 'safe sex tent', still pitched every year during the university's Orientation week.
But the medical students wanted to go further. They recognised that by the time young people arrived at university, many of them were already sexually active. So the students suggested they take the safe sex message back to their old schools.
Thus the concept of peer education in AIDS, STDs and safe sex was born. The students put together a Safe Sex Show. It was an immediate success. Organon funded a series of videos which have now been sold to schools Australia-wide.
In 1995, a delegation from the Chinese Ministry of Health paid a visit to Professor Short at Monash, and saw the videos. When the members of the delegation recognised the potential application to China, Professor Short was able to suggest to them an ideal person to initiate the program in China.
Dr Gao Yuan, one of Professor Short's former students at Monash, is an Australian citizen who grew up and attended university in China. In taking the program to Beijing and Shanghai, Dr Gao has become much more than simply a cultural bridge adapting the program to a Chinese context; he has been able to introduce Western research techniques to help substantiate the program's value.
Despite
some initial scepticism from the Chinese students, the program has been a huge
success. Once the lectures started in Beijing and Shanghai, word spread quickly
among the student body. The peer educators were much in demand and almost all
tell stories of being approached outside class.
But the real proof of success is in the attendance figures. In Beijing, about 90 per cent of the students kept coming to class - not bad, given that classes were not compulsory and were held at a busy time of year.
Although only in its second year, the program is already producing unpredicted spinoffs. For instance, it is one of the first programs ever in China to provide future doctors with skills to communicate medical information.
It has also introduced Western ideas on research and evaluation of public health and education. Even the teaching methods employed have been novel. The idea of using games, exercises and stories in class is radical. While learning about safe sex, the Chinese students are actually laughing in the classroom.
The Monash-developed scheme has led to some novel teaching methods in Chinese classrooms.
The Monash Asia Institute offers postgraduate courses in Asian Studies and Development Studies. For more details call (03) 9905 5280.
