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Since 2009, M3 students on the Primary Care Clerkship (PCC) have been required to complete a community project during their 8-week rotation. Primarily the projects have been a simple extension of clinical work, e.g. creating a patient education brochure about a condition seen.
For the 2011-12 academic year, we will take these projects to a deeper level of community involvement by partnering with the statewide AHEC system to create opportunities for Service Learning.
AHEC will help facilitate connections between students and community partners for such projects as:
• Health Careers mentoring
• General health curricula in schools or community settings
• Enhancing care at free clinics/community health centers
• Community health initiatives
During the site orientation (this is typically immediately after the general clerkship orientation for Madison students, or the following morning for all other sites), the regional AHEC director or project manager will meet with each group of students to introduce potential projects and provide contact information. The regional AHEC director or project manager will be available to contact during the clerkship for assistance with scheduling or to help guide students through the projects.
Students will be required to:
Choose a project by the end of the second week singly or in small groups);
Actively participate in chosen community project (minimum 24 hours);
Write a reflection upon their work, including a description of the community, the project, background and project impact on the community, with focus on interest in working with underserved communities. The community partner will ‘sign off’ on this reflection to verify that the work was completed.
Present their work to a group of peers and faculty back in Madison at the end of the clerkship.
The project will be graded as pass/fail. Failure to achieve passing work will result in a lowering of the overall clerkship grade by one letter category (i.e. AAB).
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