Service Learning and the Social Determinants of Health

Director: Asia Bright, PhD

Mission:

The purpose of the Service Learning and the Social Determinants of Health scholarly concentration will be to provide students with the opportunity to complete a scholarly project of their choosing within a local Houston-based community organization to increase engagement with the social determinants of health (SDoH). Two years ago, Service Learning at McGovern (SLaM) was formed with the goal of establishing the first service-learning opportunity on campus. This blue book elective has been well-received across cohorts, almost doubling in size since its inception. While this opportunity has allowed students to volunteer longitudinally with a Houston-based service organization, the goal of offering a service learning-focused scholarly concentration is to allow students to couple their volunteering with action to positively impact the organization and target population in a sustainable manner. Specifically, students will identify an unmet need related to their chosen partner organization and create a project to tackle it. Participating students will create partnerships with local organizations, form a publishable project of their choosing (clinical research, quality improvement, or medical education), participate in regular reflections, attend bi-monthly journal clubs, and culminate this experience with a lecture to the medical student community about their experiences engaging with their chose social determinant of health and organization. We hope that this scholarly concentration will help to strengthen a service-oriented culture at McGovern and allow for students to conduct a service-related research project. This scholarly concentration will be open to students in their first and second year of medical school at McGovern Medical School.

Maximum number of students/year: 15

Student selection process:

Students will submit an essay application consisting of a personal statement which accomplished the following: 1) Explain the motivation for pursuing a position within the Service Learning and the Social Determinants of Health Scholarly Concentration, 2) Describe the SDoH and population they intend to work with through their involvement with the Service Learning and the Social Determinants of Health Scholarly Concentration, 3) Describe any relevant experience to service and/or service learning, 4) Indicate the project type (clinical research, quality improvement, or medical education) that the student would want to pursue, and any specific ideas related to it, 5) Include any additional information the applicant deems relevant to the director’s consideration of the application. Service learning experience is not required to be accepted into the scholarly concentration, thus all are welcome to apply.

Recommended timeline for student completion of concentration requirements:

Note: Timeline is flexible as long as requirements are completed by the fourth year

MS1

• Complete scholarly concentration application
• Attend scholarly concentration orientation meeting
• Identify a faculty mentor, partner organization, and project idea
• Joint meeting with faculty mentor and Service Learning and the Social Determinants of Health scholarly concentration board to discuss proposed project
• Submit an outline of project as a logic model
• Summer:
  • Complete and submit literature review on population targeted by organization of interest
  • Submit project proposal to concentration leadership team
  • Students may start regular volunteering with chosen organization
  • Students start implementing their projects upon project approval
  • Attend at least one journal club session

MS2

• Fall Semester:
  • Continue to volunteer regularly with the chosen organization
  • Begin project implementation and data collection
    • Categories: Clinical, Quality Improvement, or Med Ed & Advocacy
  • Attend at least one journal club session
  • In-person reflection via small-group discussions at the end of semester
  • Attend a minimum of one forum or lecture related to the SDoH or target population of the project
  • Attend required semesterly check-in with concentration leadership team
• Spring Semester:
  • Continue to volunteer regularly with the chosen organization
  • Continue project implementation and data collection
  • Attend at least one journal club session
  • In-person reflection via small-group discussions at the end of the semester
  • Attend required semesterly check-in with concentration leadership team

MS3

• Clinical Research Project
  • Complete project and statistical analysis
  • Submit project to conference for poster presentation (regular or larger) AND submit capstone or publication style paper to peer-reviewed journal
• Quality Improvement Project
  • Submit project report for sustainability purposes
  • Submit project to conference for poster presentation (regional or larger) AND submit capstone or publication style to peer-reviewed journal
• Medical Education and Advocacy Project
  • Submit project report for sustainability purposes
  • Submit project to conference for poster presentation (regional or larger) AND submit capstone or publication style to peer-reviewed journal
  • Disseminate educational resources to appropriate people
• Other Activities
  • End of semester in-person reflections via small-group discussions
  • Attend at least one journal club session per semester
  • Meet with community organization partner to share findings from project

MS4

• Clinical Research Project
  • If poster completed, present at regional or national conference
• Quality Improvement Project
  • If poster completed, present at regional or national conference
• Advocacy Project
  • If poster completed, present at regional or national conference
• ALL 3 PROJECT CATEGORIES
  • Lead educational session on social determinant of health of interest for SLaM blue book elective volunteers
  • Coordinate with SLaM blue book elective to sustain partnerships with community organizations and maintain volunteer support at site
  • Attend at least one journal club session per semester
  • Continue to volunteer regularly with the chosen organization
  • Final two end of semester in-person reflections
  • Complete evaluation of Scholarly Concentration program
  • Attend a minimum of one forum or lecture related to the SDoH or target population of the project

 

Scholarly Project Guidelines: All students in the concentration are expected to undertake a longitudinal project in one of the three domains, either related or unrelated to their direct service with partner organizations.

Projects are expected to be:

• Clinical Research
  • Projects of this category aim to determine and quantify the clinical impact of the community organization of choice in meeting a specific health disparity and/or health outcome facing a specific demographic. The outcome being analyzed should be established after 1) discussions with the organization to gather their perspectives on what information would be useful for the population they serve and 2) discussions with a faculty mentor to ensure the proposed project is sufficiently academically rigorous.
• Quality Improvement (QI)
  • Projects of this category aim to identify an unmet need of the population and/or partner organization to further address social and health disparities the target population faces and improve their quality of life. This type of project would entail, first, performing a needs assessment with the help of the student’s chosen partner organization (if they are not continuing an ongoing QI project at their site), and second, designing an intervention to target the problem
• Medical Education and Advocacy Project
  • Projects of this category aim to create curricular content for McGovern preclinical and clinical medical students, as well as distributable educational resources to be displayed and provided to the target population. Students will work with faculty mentors to create a case-based activity or lecture to be incorporated into the medical school curriculum. Students will also work closely with their partner organization and a multi-disciplinary team of healthcare professionals to create useful educational resources to be disseminated to the non-medical and medical community.

Organizations should be related to one or more of the social determinants of health: economic stability, education access and quality, neighborhood and physical environment, food access and security, community and social context, and health care and quality.

Note: Students may create a project that is related to a pre-existing organization they are volunteering with (through SLaM or otherwise).

Project Requirements:

• Project conception and logic model outline submitted to scholarly concentration administrators
• Formal literature review and project proposal
• End of semester in-person reflections
• Attend a minimum of one forum or lecture related to the SDoH or target population of the project in the MS2 and MS4 academic years
• Regular service/engagement with target population
• Semesterly check-in meetings with faculty mentor to assess progress over the course of 4 years
• Poster presentation in a local, regional, or national forum
• Capstone or publication style paper completed by December of MS4 year

Journal Club Requirements:

• Attend 2 of the 6 scheduled journal club meetings per year, minimum of 1 session per semester
• Choose topic/journal article to lead a minimum of 1 journal club session

Service Contact Hour Requirements:

• Students will be expected to engage in a minimum of 15 hours of direct service* during each of their MS1, MS2, and MS4 years.
• MS3’s will be expected to engage in a minimum of 10 hours of direct service.
• Hours will be tracked via the scholarly concentration Canvas page.

*Direct service can be conducted in-person or virtually, depending on how the chosen organization conducts service, as long as there is face-to-face engagement with the population served. Direct service hours do not include hours spent toward project planning activities.

Academic Standing and Withdrawal from Concentration:

Concentration participants must maintain good academic standing with McGovern Medical School or will be limited in their participation by the Office of Admissions and Student Affairs. Students withdrawing from the concentration or will be on academic leave for completion of another educational program (MD/PhD) must notify the Director and Administrative Coordinator to maintain accuracy of student rosters.

Suggested Scholarly Concentration Faculty:

Faculty Name	Contribution to Concentration	Department
Asia Bright, Ph.D.	Director/Mentor	McGovern Medical School Office of Professionalism
Anson Koshy, M.D.	Mentor	McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics
John Riggs, M.D.	Mentor	McGovern Medical School Office of Professionalism
Vineeth John, M.D., M.B.A.	Mentor	McGovern Medical School Office of Professionalism
Zoabe Hafeez, M.D.	Mentor	Department of Pediatrics
Emma Omoruyi, M.D.	Mentor	Department of Pediatrics
Mary Kollmer Horton, M.P.H., M.A., Ph.D	Mentor	McGovern Medical School Office of Educational Programs, Medical Student Research Office, and Center for Humanities and Ethics

Students may select and partner with faculty not listed above as they align with the student’s research interest(s). All faculty members and projects must be submitted to the Scholarly Concentration Director/Didactic Coordinator for approval to ensure they align with concentration expectations and scope of scholarship.