Department of Clinical Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA; Department of Family Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
J Natl Med Assoc. 2018 Apr;110(2):157-162. doi: 10.1016/j.jnma.2017.04.003. Epub 2017 Apr 28.
Social and cultural outcomes are critically important in medical education. A large medical school located in the United States implemented a learning community model intended to promote social and cultural growth among its medical students. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the degree to which medical students from the same peer cohort were socially connected across racial and sex groups.
Because most assessments involving social and cultural outcomes involve self-reported data of a personal nature, the possibility of social desirability bias is increased. To mitigate this threat, this study utilized a novel method for measuring medical students social connectedness by having peers in one's advisory college provide social connectedness ratings about one another.
While surface level results did not reveal any significant differences, a closer inspection of data revealed Black females were less socially connected with medical student peers from their cohort than other peer groups.
Possible explanations for this are discussed. Future research should continue to investigate the experiences of Black females in medical schools so as to better understand the needs of this important and valuable subpopulation of students.
社会文化成果在医学教育中至关重要。美国一所大型医学院实施了学习社区模式，旨在促进医学生的社会和文化成长。本研究的目的是评估来自同一同伴群体的医学生在种族和性别群体之间的社会联系程度。
由于涉及社会文化成果的大多数评估都涉及个人性质的自我报告数据，因此社会期望偏差的可能性增加。为了减轻这种威胁，本研究通过让同伴提供彼此的社会联系评分，采用了一种新颖的方法来衡量医学生的社会联系程度。
虽然表面结果没有显示出任何显著差异，但对数据的更仔细检查表明，与其他同伴群体相比，黑人女性与同班级的医学生同伴的社会联系较少。
讨论了对此的可能解释。未来的研究应继续调查黑人女性在医学院的经历，以便更好地了解这一重要和有价值的学生群体的需求。
