Medical Students' Practice of EPAs in Service Learning

Purpose Community service learning activities meet a wide range of learning objectives: exercising clinical skills which includes taking vitals, histories and physicals, preventive health screenings and health education, injury prevention and first aid, collaborating with other members of the health care team as well as providing care under supervision for the most underserved and vulnerable populations, and addressing population health. Many of the direct service experiences enable students to work with patient records, dispense donated medicines, practice forming clinical questions, collecting patient data and interacting directly with real patients practicing interviewing skills, patient centered care and empathy. Many of the health education and safety service experiences enable students to recognize factors affecting population health and opportunities to develop strategies to improve the overall health of our communities. Methods Self-report data from osteopathic medical students’ required service is required for each activity or event and since Fall 2015 is collected electronically. Data includes the type of service, and Likert scale ratings of students overall satisfaction with the experience, and the extent to which each activity meets certain learning objectives. Specific service activities exercise specific EPAs, and students ratings can indicate whether the learning objectives for those EPAs have been met. Results Data from 920 students with a total of 7,490 service evaluation reports are available for analysis. The most common types of service are assisting at indigent clinics, health fairs, sporting events, health education and safety for children and direct health services including OMM. The majority of students strongly agreed or agreed the overall experience of a specific event was good for of them. The majority strongly agreed clinical skills, health education and collaboration learning objectives were met during homeless services events and for mission trips. Conclusions Service learning is designed to provide opportunities for students to engage in experiential learning which is task and problem specific, improves clinical skills, and experience the benefits of altruistic behavior. The model of learning applied here originated with John Dewey (1938) and developed by Kolb (1984), and Boyatzis (2000) to address professional competencies. This is a step in understanding on the impact of service learning in meeting specific learning objectives in medical education.