Community engagement in US and Canadian medical schools

Abstract

IntroductionThis study examines the integration of community engagement and community-engaged scholarship at all accredited US and Canadian medical schools in order to better understand and assess their current state of engagement.MethodsA 32-question data abstraction instrument measured the role of community engagement and community-engaged scholarship as represented on the Web sites of all accredited US and Canadian medical schools. The instrument targeted a medical school’s mission and vision statements, institutional structure, student and faculty awards and honors, and faculty tenure and promotion guidelines.ResultsMedical school Web sites demonstrate little evidence that schools incorporate community engagement in their mission or vision statements or their promotion and tenure guidelines. The majority of medical schools do not include community service terms and/or descriptive language in their mission statements, and only 8.5% of medical schools incorporate community service and engagement as a primary or major criterion in promotion and tenure guidelines.DiscussionThis research highlights significant gaps in the integration of community engagement or community-engaged scholarship into medical school mission and vision statements, promotion and tenure guidelines, and service administrative structures.

Measuring institutional community engagement: Adding value to academic health systems

“…For many years, community engagement (CE) or collaborations between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional, state, national, and global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity have been included in the missions of several land-grant universities [1,2]. However to date, CE is only included as a distinct mission in a few [3] medical schools. As CE is acknowledged as an important adjunct to improve the health of the nation through partnerships to reduce health disparities in communities, there is increased importance in including CE as a distinct School of Medicine (SOM) mission [4][5][6][7][8][9].…”

“…In addition to the need to integrate CE activities, CE stakeholders need to understand how CE affects academic institutions and the value of CE to the institution and community [3,[16][17][18]. The imperative for institutional metrics and valuation is not only for institutional interests, but also emerging requirements for CE valuation from external stakeholders (e.g., grant funding agencies and translational science partners).…”

Implementing Community Engagement as a Mission at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles

“…In summary, this report adds to the growing literature describing academic medical centers and schools experiences’ implementing community engagement, 5–15 and to heighten community engagement’s status in major academic medical centers. As far as we are aware, this is the first description of infrastructure development to track community-engaged research, teaching, and training / education across university-based Schools of Medicine, Nursing, Dentistry, affiliated research and clinical institutions, and an academic health system to address national priorities to prevent chronic disease and to improve health and health care in the 21 st century.…”

“…Although published reports of academic health system’s and medical school’s community engagement initiatives exist in the literature, 5,6,12–15 few describe strategic plan development and implementation to incorporate community engagement alongside the traditional medical school missions of education/ training, patient care, and research with other professional health schools (e.g. nursing, dentistry).…”

The evaluation of scholarship in academic promotion and tenure processes: Past, present, and future

“…(2010) reported that these items are not typically included in tenure applications, and may be considered neutral or even negative in the review process. Similarly, Goldstein & Bearman (2011) found little emphasis on community service or engagement in the RPT process at medical schools. In general, these types of activities, along with the sharing of unpublished work and using social media such as tweeting, haven't been valued by tenure and promotion committees but there is some indication this might begin to change ( Fox, 2012; Gruzd et al ., 2011; Piwowar, 2013).…”