A interdisciplinary community partnership for health professional students: a service-learning approach.
This paper presents a qualitative approach to studying the reflective learning experiences of health professional students after they participate in an interdisciplinary community-based healthcare course. Over a 2-year period, health professional students from various health-related disciplines voluntarily took an interdisciplinary community-based health course offered at an urban, mid-Atlantic, private university. Through didactic and experiential opportunities, students in the course learned the importance of providing health care services to underserved populations at urban community-based sites. Throughout the semester, students kept journals, completed community response forms, and participated in documented class discussions. A research team of health professional faculty applied constant comparative analyses to the journal entries and community site-visit response forms. Four central themes were identified as the students engaged in learning experiences at various community sites: (1) the need for preventive healthcare; (2) the importance of health services and resources; (3) the awareness of student attitude and behavioral changes; and (4) increased awareness of student and client expectations for health care services. Interpretations of these findings and recommendations for future research are presented.
Scott
Sherry B
SB
Department of Occupational Therapy, Division of Allied Health Sciences, Howard University, Washington, DC 20059, USA. sscott@howard.edu
Harrison
Adrienne D
AD
Baker
Thelma
T
Wills
Joylynne D
JD
D000328:Adult; D003153:Community Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D003159:Community-Institutional Relations; D005260:Female; D006281:Health Occupations / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D033183:Interdisciplinary Communication; D008297:Male; D008507:Medically Underserved Area; D011314:Preventive Health Services / Q000600:supply & distribution; D013336:Students, Health Occupations; D014495:Universities; D014505:Urban Population