The Texas Tech Health Sciences Center kiced off the Community Medical School Tuesday, a program that allows students, faculty, staff and community members to ask questions concerning predetermined topics and attend lectures on current public concerns.

The first meeting took place at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Academic Classroom Building in room 150, according to a news release from the Tech Health Sciences Center.

The program allows the HSC to showcase some of its faculty members, Brandi Hargrave, executive assistant to the executive vice-president for academic affairs and the coordinator of the Community Medical School, said.

(The Community Medical School) comes from the academic affairs office and were coordinating with the faculty to come in and do a presentation every month. We have it during the academic school year, Hargrave said. Its the third Tuesday of every month. We bring in a presenter, we bring different speakers from different schools and so we try to give a different topic.

The program will also encourage future college students to pursue a career in medicine, Hargrave said.

The Community Medical School was established five years ago, Rial Rolfe, executive vice president for academic affairs at the HSC, said the program lasts throughout the year and faculty and staff give the presentations at a level that everyone can understand, excluding medical jargon from the lecture.

The program has been successful in past years, Rolfe said, and helps to educate the public in order to create a more knowledgeable community that is aware of what is going on in the medical field as well as throughout the nation.

The goal of the event is really to have an informed public so that, when the public seeks to get health care, or they see things in the news, they know about it, Rolfe said. Its really kind of just general education, but also to help with their own healthcare.

Kelsea Loveless, a second year medical student from Lubbock, said health care professionals from University Medical Center were in attendance as well.

The Community Medical School is open to the community to give the public a chance to see the work of the HSC firsthand, Loveless said.

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HSC kicks off Lubbock community education program