Salon motivation-santé

Committed to helping citizens adopt healthy lifestyle habits

“If patients don’t come to us, let’s go to them!” This was probably what Marie-Ève O’Reilly-Fromentin and Isabelle Samson said to themselves when searching for a response to a study revealing that the life expectancy of residents of Québec City’s lower town was ten years less than that of people living in the upper town. And it was by setting up the Salon motivation-santé that the two medical students from Université Laval and 90 of their fellow students went out to meet with approximately 10,000 people in the middle of a shopping centre located in the target clientele’s neighbourhood during a weekend in November 2008.

The first event to bring together students in the health sciences, research chairs, public health representatives, health professionals, physicians and community workers, the Salon motivation-santé amply fulfilled its mission of informing citizens and providing them with the tools and motivation to help them adopt healthy lifestyle habits. And if you look at the state of our health care system – with its financial difficulties, hospital overcrowding, waiting lists, shortage of family physicians and so forth – the existence of the Salon is definitely justified.

“We believe than prevention is an integral part of the solution. By eating better and being more active, all Québécois have the power to improve their quality of life in the long term while reducing their number of hospital visits,” asserts Marie-Ève.

In the course of the weekend, future doctors, nutritionists, kinesitherapists and other specialists set up fifteen or so kiosks where citizens flocked to seek their tips and advice. The students thus came to realize the importance of an approach centred on the individual in their environment. “The experience was an enriching supplement to the students’ academic learning. Whereas hospitals are true hives of activity where productivity is of foremost importance, the Salon allowed us to take the time to listen to people and thus better advise them,” Marie-Ève explains.

One of the pride and joys of the project’s two creators is the screening aspect. Almost 500 people took advantage of the opportunity to get a medical check-up and a free follow-up consultation with a graduate student in kinesiology. “A success such as this is a reminder that these days access to health care professionals is very limited,” Marie-Ève remarks.

“This initiative from the students is a definite sign that times have changed and that our future health professionals wish to focus their actions on prevention,” Dr. Jean-Pierre Després pointed out during the opening press conference.

The event’s huge impact on the community has been hailed far and wide. The extensive media coverage has aroused the interest of other organizations. Last February, the students offered similar services at the Salon défi-santé Mariverain in the Beauce region and the medical students’ association at the Université de Montréal has sought the advice of the salon’s founders with the goal of trying the same thing.

“Because of the Salon’s multidisciplinary nature, its preventive approach based on people in their living environment and the guidance it offers to people who want to start taking their health in hand, the Salon has proved to be an innovative event with vision and an avant-garde approach,” sums up Pierre Lemay, development advisor at Université Laval.

Salon motivation-santé