Document Type
Article
Publication Date
6-18-2021
Publication Title
Medical Science Educator
First page number:
1
Last page number:
5
Abstract
Although medical students enter medicine with altruistic motives and seek to serve indigent populations, studies show that medical students’ attitudes towards the undeserved tend to worsen significantly as they go through their medical education. This finding emphasizes the need for medical educators to implement activities such as service-learning that may help mitigate this negative trend. All students at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) School of Medicine are required to participate in longitudinal service-learning throughout medical school, and a majority of students interact with the underserved at their service-learning sites. Using the previously validated Medical Student Attitudes Towards the Underserved (MSATU), independent sample T-tests showed that students who interact with underserved populations at their sites scored with significantly better attitudes towards the underserved at the end of their preclinical phase. Subjects included 58 medical students with 100% taking the MSATU. This result indicates that longitudinal service-learning, particularly when it includes interaction with the underserved, can be one method to combat the worsening of medical students’ attitudes as they complete their medical education.
Keywords
Community-oriented; Ethics/attitudes; Medical education; Public health
Disciplines
Interprofessional Education | Medical Education
File Format
File Size
594 KB
Language
English
Rights
IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Repository Citation
Arebalos, M.,
Botor, F.,
Simanton, E.,
Young, J.
(2021).
Required Longitudinal Service-Learning and Its Effects on Medical Students’ Attitudes Toward the Underserved.
Medical Science Educator
1-5.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40670-021-01350-7