Twelve tips to center social accountability in undergraduate medical education

Abstract

As the intersections of social identities and health become increasingly evident, the need for medical schools to center their education on social accountability becomes critical. Medical schools have a responsibility to direct their curriculum to ensure graduates become competent physicians in identifying and intervening for their community’s needs. These topics have historically been taught in a didactic fashion, but there lacks adequate translation of this teaching style to clinical and community health advocacy. Active learning strategies must be used to engage students to critically think and act on the inter-relationships of social issues and health. We provide 12 recommendations to optimize medical education to effectively immerse students in social accountability through the use of experiential learning within a spiral curriculum. These recommendations are based on reviews of the literature and an environmental scan of curricular activities across Canadian medical schools.

Keywords:

• Social accountability
• health advocacy
• medical education
• spiral curriculum
• experiential learning

Acknowledgments

We would like to the thank the University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine International and Global Health Office for their support, Ms. Karine Fournier, MIS, for her contributions to the development of the scoping reviews, and Dr. Karry Felix, for his translational assistance in the environmental scan. We would also like to thank all faculty and student representatives from various Canadian medical schools who participated in the environmental scan.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This project was generously supported by University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine International and Global Health Office through their summer studentship program.

Notes on contributors

Oliver W. Fung

Oliver W. Fung is a medical student at the University of Ottawa, with an interest in the intersection of medical education, global health, and health advocacy.

Yvonne Ying

Yvonne Ying, MD, MSE, MEd, MSc, FRCSC, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of Ottawa, and a pediatric plastic surgeon at CHEO. She has an academic interest in health advocacy education and global surgery.