Letter from the Editor: The Importance of Physician Charitable Giving

Explore This Issue

Community Service and Medical Education

Community outreach can greatly enhance medical education:

1. Renews vision: Community service provides opportunities to pursue interests in a medical context, and can help identify new passions.
2. Exposes students to available community resources: Community involvement can help physicians identify resources available to patients outside clinic walls.
3. Teaches ways to approach rough problems: Community challenges students to identify the needs of a target population and research sustainable solutions.
4. Moves students beyond clinic walls: Service provides a special window into what living with disease and illness is like by taking students to the places where patients live every day with their health challenges.
5. Builds team-based skills: Advocacy groups, free health clinics, and even interest groups supply outlets to practice critical team skills.

Source: Hanvey B. 5 Ways Community Service Enhances Medical Education. Published October 2014.