Integrating Longitudinal Community-Based Experiential Learning Across Medical School Classes

Abstract

Introduction/Background: Medical student-led consulting groups facilitate student engagement with the communities they serve while also teaching transferable skills relevant to community outreach, problem-solving, and team-based collaboration. However, maintaining the continuity of projects between successive student cohorts has frequently posed challenges such as changing priorities and a lack of institutional memory. Establishing long-term relationships with community organizations provides students the opportunity to track and assess the sustained impact of their interventions over time and also offers these organizations a consistent source of dedicated support and expertise, reducing the need for repeated onboarding and ensuring that interventions align seamlessly with their evolving needs and goals. To ensure the longevity of our community connections, several solutions can be implemented. Methods: Inspired by initiatives at select medical schools, medical student-led pro-bono consulting groups will collaborate with local organizations to identify vital community needs. Students will work closely with community leaders to design, implement, and assess solutions, offering students real-world experience relevant to their future careers while bettering the community. To ensure a seamless transition across classes for both the students and local partners, the student leaders of the consulting organization would span across each class, allowing upperclassmen to mentor the underclassmen and promoting expertise retention. Executive board elections would be done at the end of the first-year students’ first semester, after they have had the opportunity to participate in an ongoing community project under the guidance of an upperclassman. Detailed transition documents will be maintained in an accessible location. Handoff meetings will be conducted between the newly elected executive member and the outgoing leadership. Outgoing leadership will also facilitate a transition meeting between the incoming leadership and community partner to foster vertical relationships and mutual trust. A committed faculty advisor will be integral to overseeing these transitions. Evaluation Plan/Results: The evaluation process of such a program would ensure that the relationship between the community and the institution is maintained longitudinally. This would be done by having evaluations sent to community partners annually assessing the quality of the institution as a partner as well as the interpersonal communication that has occurred between the institution and community partner. A similar evaluation would also be posed to community members to examine the relationship that the institution has with individuals in the community, which would reveal the impact that the institution may have on the community of which they are inherently a part. These evaluations could then be posed within the institution itself to ask about the value of community member relationships. The culmination of these evaluations would allow for the institution to better evaluate the impact that it has in the community and improve relationships longitudinally for the institution. Additionally, this allows for medical students to develop relationships in the community that will help their peers as well as their own future relationships as physicians in this same community. Potential Impact: By facilitating a seamless transition of leadership within these student-led consulting groups, we will foster more trusting, meaningful, and mutually beneficial relationships with our community partners. Furthermore, by performing regimented evaluations of the quality of these partnerships, we will cultivate robust long-term collaborations.