Student-run free clinic volunteers: who they are and what we can learn from them

Abstract

Background Initiatives employing medical students’ volunteerism and idealism, such as the Student-Run Free Clinics (SRFC) program, are prevalent in US medical schools. Many studies evaluated various aspects of volunteering, sometimes resulting in conflicting evidence. This study simultaneously sought to identify the characteristics of volunteers vs. non-volunteers, and to characterize the volunteers’ perception of the SRFC. Methods We administered a survey to the Long School of Medicine (LSOM) Class of 2018 before their third year of medical school. The authors compared and contrasted the findings of the SRFC volunteers with their non-volunteering counterparts by analyzing their demographics, volunteering history, academic performance, and clinical skills. The volunteers were also asked about their SRFC experiences. Results While most volunteers were female (62 %) and non-traditional students (67 %), the difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.15 and p = 0.38, respectively). Additionally, there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups in measures of academic performance (p = 0.25). Most of the volunteers learned about the SRFC program prior to starting medical school. Further, while SRFC volunteers were more likely to engage in additional local volunteering initiatives, the difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.03, prespecified α= 0.006). Importantly, volunteers agreed/strongly agreed that SRFC volunteering emphasized aspects that were missing or underemphasized in the formal medical school curriculum. Conclusions Medical students’ age, gender, undergraduate major, and non-traditional status were not statistically different between volunteers vs. non-volunteers. However, there may be tendencies for volunteers to be female, non-traditional, and locally engaged. Further, the timing of knowledge of the SRFC program may not affect student involvement in the SRFC, either. Most importantly, however, while volunteering does not affect the students’ academic performance, it may provide improvements in clinical competencies.

Volunteering among pre-clinical medical students: Study of its association with academic performance using institutional data

“…The results of this study show that there is equal participation in volunteering from a gender perspective, with both female and male students exhibiting a similar level of involvement in volunteering activities, though the percentage of females (76.5%) among the studied population is far more than that of the males (23.5%). Our results concur with other studies suggestion that medical students' gender is not statistically different between volunteers vs. non-volunteers yet, there may be tendencies for volunteers to be female 23 . Additionally, the level of participation in volunteering activities among non-UAE nationals was significantly higher than that of the UAE nationals.…”

“…The increase in the average number of volunteering across the three categories of annual GPA and towards the higher annual GPA group was trivial. Yet, our observations support the findings of previous literature, which suggested that students with higher levels of service/service-learning performed better in several important measures of academic success, including class rank (GPA), measure of clinical knowledge, and residency director ratings 23 , 29 . There are many factors which could contribute to this finding.…”

“…Studies show that volunteering can expose medical students to core competencies that are underrepresented in some formal curriculum 21 , 22 . Further, researchers highly recommend that preclinical students be exposed to real life clinical scenarios, thus improving their pattern recognition skills, and reinforcing conceptualization rather than memorization 23 . It may be that volunteering involvement fosters aspects of professional development, such as altruism, dutifulness, and awareness of systems-based practice issues, that are carried forward into residency and enhances the graduates’ overall internship abilities 4 .…”

Motivation to Impact: Medical Student Volunteerism in the COVID 19 Pandemic

“…Medical students experienced common shared obstacles, including tension between personal safety and professional duty (38%), and were often concerned about COVID’s impacts on society (44%) [ 34 ]. Prosocial motivation may be a component of student volunteering; student volunteers may be more engaged with their local communities than students who do not volunteer [ 35 ]. The choice to volunteer as a medical provider during a crisis may also be due to an individual’s altruistic tendencies, in addition to the desire to impact local spaces [ 36 ].…”

Creating a win-win for the health system and health Profession’s education: a direct observation clinical experience with feedback iN real-time (DOCENT) for low acuity patients in the emergency department

“…One proposed solution for interprofessional education and collaboration is student-run free clinics. By relying on interested students and faculty, these clinics avoid bias towards interprofessional education [ 23 ] and offer peer-to-peer teaching, which is considered an asset [ 22 ]. Students care for complex patients and better understand the role of teams in patient care [ 24 ].…”