Rouages: “Encouraging students to reflect on their health behaviors”
Dominique Makhloufi and Quentin Dudon both work at the Joint Preventive Medicine and Health Prevention Service (SCMPPS). At the Montpellier University Institute of Technology (IUT) campus, they see students for consultations and carry out various preventive health initiatives on campus. They talk to us about their work in the video series Rouages, produced by the University of Montpellier. Action!
Our meeting place that day is the Montpellier-Sète University Institute of Technology (IUT) campus in Occitanie. It's a beautiful spring day, and we take advantage of it to set up the camera in the shade of the pine trees. In a small single-story building below the gate, Dominique Makhloufi, a nurse, and Quentin Dudon, a preventive medicine doctor, are preparing for the shoot by fine-tuning their speeches. Although the joint preventive medicine and health prevention service employs nearly forty staff, there are only about ten of them working in this small Occitanie branch to fulfill their mission of prevention and health promotion among all UM staff and students.
Nearly 1,500 consultations per year
While Dominique Makhloufi is permanently based at this site, Quentin Dudon rotates between three of the SCMPPS's six branches: "I provide consultations at Richter, at the Biology Institute in the city center, and here at the IUT." Both of their main tasks are to provide medical consultations , in particular by assisting "PASS and paramedical students with their mandatory vaccinations for their second-year internship, especially tuberculosis," explains Dominique Makhloufi, before adding: "I also monitor fourth-year pharmacy students who are halfway through their studies ." In total, there are nearly 1,500 consultations per year. These health students, who are summoned by email, "don't always understand the importance of preventive medicine and why they are being summoned. We have to be educational and explain the purpose of these medical visits," emphasizes Quentin Dudon, who has also recently started seeing international students at Richter.
Psychological follow-up
Psychological support for students is also a priority during these consultations, which assess the main aspects of their lives that affect their health and academic success: sleep, diet, well-being, and overall health. "Many don't have a primary care physician and have limited access to healthcare. They may face social, financial, or psychological difficulties... It is very important that the University helps them," says Quentin Dudon, who appreciates above all the "cross-disciplinary and diverse" nature of his job. "We can also refer them to other health professionals, whether they belong to the University or not, depending on their needs," adds Dominique Makhloufi.
A pivotal period
Prevention means preventive measures, an essential part of their role on the Triolet and Richter campuses and at the IUT. The aim of these interventions isto"encourage students to reflect on their behavior, with a focus on prevention in areas such as mental health, stress management, diet, nutrition, sexual health, addiction, and health and fitness," explains Quentin Dudon. Having joined the SCMPPS in November 2022, this public health and medicine graduate is now working in his first position as a prevention doctor with this specific audience of students. "We know that, overall, students are in fairly good physical health but can be characterized by sometimes significant mental health problems, including risky behaviors."
" Young people have changed over the last fifteen or twenty years. Screens in particular have revolutionized their way of life, adding an anxiety-inducing and time-consuming dimension that wasn't so present before," says Dominique Makhloufi, who, after an initial career in the infectious and tropical diseases department at Montpellier University Hospital, joined the French National Education System in 2002 and then Montpellier University in 2021. "I love the contact with young people, the listening, the kindness, and the responsiveness that it requires. I love this pivotal period between the time when they are high school students and when they become college students and start to take charge of their own lives," concludes the prevention nurse.