Smoking Sleuths: A pilot tobacco prevention elective for medical school students

Abstract

Smoking Sleuths provides opportunities for medical students to learn counseling and health education skills across many disciplines. The elective may have a broader audience in schools of allied health, nursing, dentistry, education, and public health.

Understanding the Goals of Service Learning and Community-Based Medical Education: A Systematic Review

“…22,24,25,27,28,33-37,44 -46 A few emphasized only direct clinical care, 19,47-51 and programs involving junior medical students tended to focus on health promotion projects. 21,26,38,39,43,[52][53][54][55] Finally, a few articles described students' participation in nonmedical activities such as volunteering in a hospice, 56 providing language translation, 31 or rebuilding homes, walking dogs, and sorting donations after a natural disaster. 57 Service learning, as Seifer 11 suggests, should respond to "communityidentified concerns."…”

“…Complex topics such as professionalism, social determinants of health, cultural competence, and systems-based practice are difficult to teach through traditional didactic methods. Articles that were authored by students 44,45,48 or that included comments from students 24,26,27,35,37,46,49,54 suggested that medical students develop new insights and a greater understanding about many of these ideas through community-based experiences. In keeping with the pedagogy of service learning, many authors described or advocated formal reflection exercises for students to contemplate and integrate the lessons they learned from their community experiences.…”

Addressing the health advocate role in medical education

“…Akin to teaching clinical knowledge through bedside teaching, an effective way of teaching health advocacy is through community involvement that actively involves learners in the advocacy process [11]. According to a systematic review that analyzed 57 peerreviewed articles on service learning or communitybased education in US medical schools, educators found it easier to use community learning to teach complicated or abstract topics such as cultural competence, the social determinants of health, and professionalism, compared to traditional didactic methods [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]. Students who engaged in authentic, hands-on activities developed deeper insights and understanding of related issues and how to better address them [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34].…”

Effect of Lectures by Medical Students on the Awareness of Lifestyle for Elementary School Students

“…To improve the situation, Basic Act on Food Education was established in 2005, and many initiatives have been established, including the Nutrition Teacher System, to protect children's health. Several studies have been conducted which provide occasions for medical students to contribute to societal healthcare and preventive medicine [4][5][6]. These have generally focused on teaching general health in elementary schools, or smoking cessation from elementary schools to high schools.…”

“…These have generally focused on teaching general health in elementary schools, or smoking cessation from elementary schools to high schools. The latter in particular is approved as credit in some universities [4,5]. These studies maintain the quality of intervention through review by experts.…”