Longitudinal integrated clerkships (LICs) involve learners spending an extended time in a clinical setting (or a variety of interlinked clinical settings) where their clinical learning opportunities are interwoven through continuities of patient contact and care, continuities of assessment and supervision, and continuities of clinical and cultural learning. Our twelve tips are grounded in the lived experiences of designing, implementing, maintaining, and evaluating LICs, and in the extant literature on LICs. We consider: general issues (anticipated benefits and challenges associated with starting and running an LIC); logistical issues (how long each longitudinal experience should last, where it will take place, the number of learners who can be accommodated); and integration issues (how the LIC interfaces with the rest of the program, and the need for evaluation that aligns with the dynamics of the LIC model). Although this paper is primarily aimed at those who are considering setting up an LIC in their own institutions or who are already running an LIC we also offer our recommendations as a reflection on the broader dynamics of medical education and on the priorities and issues we all face in designing and running educational programs.
There are signs that NOSM is successful in graduating health professionals who have the skills and desire to practice in rural/remote communities and that NOSM is having a largely positive socioeconomic impact on Northern Ontario.
"Community" has featured in the discourse about medical education for over half a century. This discourse has explored relationships between medical education programs and communities in community-oriented medical education and community-based medical education and, in recent years, has extended to community-engaged medical education (CEME). This Perspective explores the developing focus on "community" in medical education, describes CEME as a concept, and presents examples of CEME in action at Flinders University School of Medicine (Australia), the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (Canada), and Ateneo de Zamboanga University School of Medicine (Philippines).The authors describe the ways in which CEME, which features active community participation, can improve medical education while meeting community needs and advancing national and international health equity agendas. They suggest that CEME can redefine student learning as taking place at the center of the partnership between communities and medical schools. They also consider the challenges of CEME and caution that criteria for community engagement must be sensitive to cultural variations and to the nature of the social contract in different sociocultural settings.The authors argue that CEME is effective in producing physicians who choose to practice in rural and underserved areas. Further research is required to demonstrate that CEME contributes to improved health, and ultimately health equity, for the populations served by the medical school.
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