CRP : Community Residency Programme

what is CRP? some of my fren said, its a CRAP without A. HAhaha. actually its a programme where us, medical students went to the field and doing a health survey +health checkup and and do thematic project based on the data from survey. Usually, for this programme, we will be posted in a rural area as we also help the district health office to do survey in some villages. For this project, it took the whole month. 1 week preparation for thematics, 2 weeks on the field and debriefing week.

This time, we went to Pahang and divided into 5 groups, Bera, Kuala Lipis, Pekan, Maran and Rompin. I'm posted in Bera group and we doing a thematic projecton relationship of handgrip with current health status/ past occupational history. After the tea and coffee session with Sanjay rampal, he warn us for no absentism esp during crp programme, if not he reports us straight to the dean.
So, we in the unwillingly mood going to the group discussion and the tiredness from the day before did not wean off yet.

The first week (23-28 February 2009)
The first thing that we did was ice-breaking and select the comittee for our group. The station manager was Mohd Dzulhelmi, assisted by Siti Nadzrah,Fatin as secretary,Kim wong deputy to secretary, Joo qing as Logistic Manager and Siang Yew as treasurer. Devan as Data manager, and Kejal,Zarina, Marium and as editors.For the whole week we prepared for the field trip, doing literiture review on the topic that we choose,putting up the introduction and do a survey to
see the place that we gonna stay for the next 2 weeks. we also had a whole day SPSS class and truly, it was a grossly boooring!! the only positive things dat week is we had our group discussion in the library, so we had the best internet connection here in Klang and I'm able to download a lot things that week,=P


The Second week (1-8 March 2009)
on the 1st March, everybody getting ready and excited to go for the field trip. Dat morning, as early as 5a.m, there were students that woke up to preparing their bags.At 8, everybody starting to load their BAGS&GOODS into the cars and starts our trip to Bera. By 2pm, we reach ed Bera after 4hrs journey. After a debriefing, we finally able to rest through out the day.

The next day, we had opening ceremony with district health personel and also the head of te villages (tok pat) and we further divided into 4 villages that we will attending. Later we went to visit the villages and started to do mapping. For the research to be valid, we were required to do a random sampling, so for the 1st day, we draw a map of the village, basically included all houses in the area and labelled the house with no. Then, using a random sampling method, we picked no of houses that will be included in the research.

After choosing the house, we did a house by house survey where we will asked about >200Q to each of householder, and then do a physical examination in means of height, weight, BP, BMI and also handgrip strength. Sounds like simple? Hang on.

My group and i were in Kampung Kuala Triang, a village by the side of Pahang's river. It was a very old village, about 200 years of age and it has 7 smaller village in it. As we arrived, we anticipated the problem that we will have;
1. in my group, we only have 7 people, means we at most can only make up to 3 teams and a single runner and we only have a single set of measurements. So we have to coordinate the usage of these item between the 3 teams.
2.in means of transport, the house mostly situated next to the main road of the village, so you can imagine how far do we have to walk if there is about 200houses in the area.
3.there is poor maxis n digi reception, which put us on an disadvantage becoz all of us using either maxis or digi. it's a prob since the runner have to reach us to pass the measurements set.
4. we have to finish this task in 5days.

On the next day, as sun raises, we went to the village and started our mission. Our goal of the day is to finish as much as possible however at first, we have to be familliar with the questionares because we have different sheets to put on the answer. At first house, my partner and i have to take about an hour to finish the questionares. Later, we got used to it and able to finished them as early as 20minutes. On the first day, we only manage to go to 12 house total of 3 groups. it looks a gloomy day for us since the other village have finished about 20% of their requirements(however there is differences in no of manpower, location and no of house needed)

On the wednesday, we had visits in the morning and there also had been bad news to one of our collegues so my partner had to go back to kl and we had lesser manpower and manage to go to our 18th houses. that night, our supervisor already warning us whether we can finished up in next 3 days.

As the next day come by, we planned to do an all out day and this time we managed to settle 26 houses in a day and on the friday, we already finished the required no of house. The only problem left is to do the handgrip measurement since the measures are used by the other 3 village before us and on the saturday, what we have to do is to retrace our sample and do a handgrip.

For the whole week, every night we would had meeting and also data key-in where we have to settle the questionares that had been clerk by us and only later the data will be merged together as Bera's Data before it merged with other district.

As the data merged on the saturday night, our field work officially finished and it was a relief for all of us. there had been a lot of drama in my teams through the week and i'm glad it's over. There had been "i don't want to talk to you" drama, "where have you been?", "i don't want to ride in his car","i'm boycotting the meeting" and a lot more and i don't want to talk about it.

To repay the kindness of the villagers that supports us all along the survey, we did a free health checkup in accordance of Maulidur Rasul in the mosque of the village. we really thanks them all!
in the next post it will be all the visits n funs we had for the 3rd n debriefing wee, =D..