Building Community and Medical School Partnerships: Impact on Undergraduate Medical Education and Research
Abstract Background: Community service provides avenues for social learning in medical education. Partnerships between medical schools and local healthcare agencies has paved the path for an active participation of a medical student in the community. This seems to have a positive impact on the medical knowledge and skills of students and also leads to a betterment of healthcare services for the community. National accreditation agencies and medical boards have emphasized that medical schools should provide opportunities for such learning to occur in the medical school curriculum. Various medical schools around the globe have adopted this active learning pedagogy and thus we wanted to explore how we can establish such a learning framework at out university.Methods: This was a qualitative study based on feedback from volunteer students who attended the annual health fare conducted in collaboration with local healthcare agencies. Two focus group interviews were recorded, transcribed and coded for thematic analyses.Results: Overall, the students enjoyed learning various clinical procedural skills. This activity was an opportunity to apply the medical knowledge learnt in classrooms. The students developed various competencies like communication skills, professionalism, team work and social responsibility. Prevalent health conditions discovered by the students included diabetes mellitus, hypertension and nutritional imbalance.Conclusions: This study explores how serving the community can bring about an educational change for a medical student. The community service framework promotes social learning, interprofessional education, peer learning and active learning amongst medical students.