To promote mutual respect and interaction between the school community and the health care community. The ultimate goal is to encourage and secure healthy lives for our students.

PURPOSE: We feel that a Medical Advisory Board would be beneficial in many ways. Because so many advances have been made in medicine in recent years, we have many students with complex medical issues on our campuses. Also, we are often called upon to make decisions that affect all students and we find ourselves in the position of justifying and defending those decisions. We consult many medical sources before decisions are made and feel that having a board of physicians to back up these judgements would be beneficial to the community.

We hope the board would be a liaison between our schools and the medical community in order to facilitate constructive communication and interaction for the benefit of the students. For instance, a physician requesting Adaptive Physical Education (APE) for their patient would know that an APE "Assessment" is the first step. Rather than prescribing APE, the physician would inform the parent that their child might be eligible for these school services.

GOAL: We would like to be able to discuss general health related issues as they relate to school at the board meetings. We also hope to be able to call on the physicians from time to time to ask their expertise when we have a specific question. We would like to be able to speak with them as an additional resource for medical decision making.

MEETINGS: We propose the board meets three times yearly, in the fall (October or November), in the winter (January or February), and in the spring (May or June). We would like the first meeting to take place in February 2007. This meeting would be introductory and organizational so that when we meet again in the spring we will be prepared to discuss issues and emerging problems.

The meetings will be planned well with a typed agenda. They will be no longer than two hours and will be informal so that the physicians will be able to have some time for networking with each other. There will be time for questions at each meeting.

We propose that we have a secretary for the meetings so that accurate notes are kept. Copies of these notes would be distributed to all board members via email following each meeting.

These meetings will probably take place in the early evening due to physician schedules. We propose that the meetings be catered. This will occur currently through support of pharmaceutical companies representing a variety of specialty needs. The representatives will also provide the board with information on current medication updates for a variety of pediatric specialties.

RECRUITMENT: We hope to have physicians from various fields of specialty on the board. The Superintendent and other Educational Services administration will also be of key importance. A list of possible candidates is attached. Many are parents in the district and/or are physicians who practice in Irvine.

EXPECTED OUTCOME: We hope to promote mutual respect between the school community and the health care community. The ultimate goal is to promote normal, healthy lives for our students.

Marcia Noonan, R.N., PHN, M.Ed.

IUSD Health Services Coordinator

(949) 936-7925

Laurie Marrujo

IUSD Health Services, Admin. Secretary

(949) 936-7921

Medical Advisory Board: Mission Statement & Guidelines: 1/31/07: lm