Mercadante Sophia F, Goldberg Leah A, Divakaruni V Laavanya, Erwin Ryan, Savoy Margot, O'Gurek David
Lewis Katz School of Medicine, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA.
Department of Family Medicine, University of Maryland Medical Center, Baltimore, MD.
PRiMER. 2021 Jun 18;5:19. doi: 10.22454/PRiMER.2021.489756. eCollection 2021.
Student-run clinics can supplement medical education by exposing students to diverse clinical scenarios and collaborating with underresourced populations. We examined the impact of volunteering at THRIVE, a student-run bridge clinic located within sheltered housing for individuals with substance use disorder, on students' attitudes toward people experiencing homelessness (PEH).
This cohort study analyzed pre- and postsurvey matched responses from nonvolunteer and volunteer first-year medical students utilizing the Health Professional Attitudes Towards the Homeless (HPATHI) tool, totaled into three subcategories: Cynicism, Social Advocacy, and Personal Advocacy. We evaluated the association between change in scores and volunteering utilizing Student t tests and adjusting for participant characteristics using multivariable regression analysis.
We received 106 responses (53% response rate); 58 students (55%) volunteered at the clinic and were mostly female (62%), White (52%), and had previous experience working with PEH (71%). The mean change in Personal Advocacy scores was higher for volunteers compared to nonvolunteers, even when adjusting for respondent characteristics (=.02). Additionally, students who held a prior advanced degree and/or current enrollment in the master of bioethics program (Higher Education Students) had a positive association with change in Personal Advocacy scores (=.02).
Volunteering at the THRIVE Clinic appears to impact the Personal Advocacy scores of medical students. This suggests that interacting with PEH early in students' career may be associated with a commitment to working with this population. However, our study has multiple limitations, including self-selection bias, limited sample size, and unclear permanence of students' attitudes over time. Further studies of this cohort could help clarify the significance and permanence of volunteering in student-run clinics.
学生运营的诊所可以让学生接触到多样的临床场景，并与资源匮乏的人群合作，从而补充医学教育。我们研究了在THRIVE（一家位于为患有物质使用障碍的个人提供的庇护性住房内的学生运营的过渡诊所）做志愿者对学生对待无家可归者（PEH）态度的影响。
这项队列研究分析了非志愿者和志愿者一年级医学生使用“健康专业人员对无家可归者的态度”（HPATHI）工具进行的调查前和调查后的匹配回复，这些回复总计分为三个子类别：愤世嫉俗、社会倡导和个人倡导。我们使用学生t检验评估分数变化与志愿服务之间的关联，并使用多变量回归分析对参与者特征进行调整。
我们收到了106份回复（回复率为53%）；58名学生（55%）在诊所做志愿者，他们大多为女性（62%），白人（52%），并且之前有与无家可归者合作的经验（71%）。即使在对受访者特征进行调整后，志愿者的个人倡导分数的平均变化也高于非志愿者（P =.02）。此外，拥有先前高级学位和/或目前就读于生物伦理硕士项目的学生（高等教育学生）与个人倡导分数的变化呈正相关（P =.02）。
在THRIVE诊所做志愿者似乎会影响医学生的个人倡导分数。这表明在学生职业生涯早期与无家可归者互动可能与致力于与这一人群合作有关。然而，我们的研究有多个局限性，包括自我选择偏差、样本量有限以及学生态度随时间的持久性不明确。对这一队列的进一步研究有助于阐明在学生运营的诊所做志愿者的意义和持久性。
