Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Required Longitudinal Service-Learning And Its Effects On Medical Students’ Attitudes Toward The Underserved, Monica Rose Arebalos, Faun Lee Botor, Edward Simanton, Jennifer Young

School of Medicine Faculty Publications

Although medical students enter medicine with altruistic motives and seek to serve indigent populations, studies show that medical students’ attitudes towards the undeserved tend to worsen significantly as they go through their medical education. This finding emphasizes the need for medical educators to implement activities such as service-learning that may help mitigate this negative trend. All students at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) School of Medicine are required to participate in longitudinal service-learning throughout medical school, and a majority of students interact with the underserved at their service-learning sites. Using the previously validated Medical Student Attitudes Towards the …