McDaniel Grant H, Aho Tricia, Bodi Shirley, Baptista Carlos A C, Frank Patrick W
Medical Education, University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences, Toledo, USA.
Family Medicine, University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences, Toledo, USA.
Cureus. 2024 Jul 8;16(7):e64091. doi: 10.7759/cureus.64091. eCollection 2024 Jul.
Community outreach is an established method for organizations to interact with the community. It is often done to help improve the community and its members by providing resources and educational opportunities. A growing crisis facing the United States of America is a worsening physician shortage, which will negatively impact many across the nation, especially vulnerable communities. The Student-to-Student organization offers a novel approach to community outreach by helping introduce and inspire high school students and young adults to pursue medicine. The organization is run by medical students and supervised by the College of Medicine faculty. It offers students from local high schools, community colleges, and undergraduate universities the opportunity to visit the medical college, where they can explore human anatomy and discuss the different facets of medicine and medical education with current medical students. This experience provides medical students with the ability to refine their public speaking abilities, gain leadership experience, improve their professional identity, and be involved in meaningful community outreach. These attributes also serve to enhance medical student residency applications at a time when uncertainties abound in the aftermath of Step One becoming pass/fail. The organization has run continuously since 1987 (except for one year during the COVID-19 pandemic). It has evolved over the years to become a high-performing organization that provides more than 80 tours yearly to thousands of students from the surrounding communities. This article aims to provide a detailed description of the history, organization, and impact of the Student-to-Student organization so that other medical students have a framework for implementing a similar program at their institution.
社区外展是各组织与社区互动的既定方式。这样做通常是为了通过提供资源和教育机会来帮助改善社区及其成员的状况。美国面临的一个日益严重的危机是医生短缺情况不断恶化，这将对全国许多人，尤其是弱势群体产生负面影响。“学生对学生”组织提供了一种新颖的社区外展方式，通过帮助引导和激励高中生及年轻人投身医学领域。该组织由医学生运营，并由医学院教师监督。它为当地高中、社区学院和本科院校的学生提供参观医学院的机会，在那里他们可以探索人体解剖学，并与在读医学生讨论医学和医学教育的不同方面。这段经历使医学生能够提升他们的公众演讲能力、获得领导经验、强化他们的职业认同感，并参与有意义的社区外展活动。在第一步考试改为通过/失败制之后不确定性众多的当下，这些特质也有助于提升医学生的住院医师申请竞争力。该组织自1987年以来一直在持续运作（除了新冠疫情期间的一年）。多年来，它已发展成为一个高效的组织，每年为来自周边社区的数千名学生提供80多次参观活动。本文旨在详细介绍“学生对学生”组织的历史、组织架构和影响，以便其他医学生有一个在自己所在院校实施类似项目的框架。
