Global health education locally: A community service-learning program to support refugees, engage medical students, and fill a gap in the community

Abstract

Background: Socially accountable medical education prepares future physicians around the world to address the priority health concerns of society, with particular attention to marginalized populations, using educational, research, and service models that engage interdisciplinary professionals, public and private organizations, and civil society. Schools of medicine interested in advancing their socially accountable roles need structural frameworks on which to build such programs in the communities they serve. Structure/Method/Design: This presentation builds on available literature and theory regarding socially accountable medical education, a review of exemplary medical education programs from around the world that focus on social accountability, and our personal experience, both domestically and internationally, in developing socially accountable systems of medical education. Results (Scientific Abstract)/Collaborative Partners (Programmatic Abstract): We present the REVOLUTIONS framework for socially accountable medical education in a global context. This framework is based on the following theses: 1) medical schools have a duty to train socially accountable physicians; 2) training such physicians means building socially accountable systems of medical education; 3) building such systems means movement (from traditional to socially accountable educational models or practices) along 11 teaching, learning, and service dimensions. Each of the 11 REVOLUTIONS dimensions highlights: 1) one area of medical education, including characteristics of that area that correspond to traditional and socially accountable educational systems; 2) changes needed in each area to make medical education more socially accountable; and, 3) reference to exemplary programs demonstrating progress in social accountability. Summary/Conclusion: Medical schools interested in becoming more socially accountable need a blueprint for developing their curricula. The REVOLUTIONS framework for socially accountable medical education provides this blueprint. In this presentation we review the reasons for moving toward a social accountability in medical education, present a framework for considering and structuring these changes, and provide an up-to-date review of global best practices in socially accountable medical education.