Students' experience of prison health education during medical school

Social responsibility and accountability can be important core values in medical education. At the University of British Columbia, undergraduate medical students engage in prison health community service-learning opportunities in regional correctional facilities.

To describe the impact of prison health exposure on pre-clinical medical students, in-depth individual interviews were conducted with individuals who had participated in a prison health medical education program. All interviews were transcribed verbatim, and interpretive descriptive methods were used to inductively derive thematic findings to describe students' experiences.

Major themes emerged as students reported how (1) exposure to incarcerated populations increases students' insight into issues that diverse marginalized sub-populations encounter; (2) positive interactions with the incarcerated individuals enhances relationship building; (3) collaboration reinforces teamwork skills and (4) community placements garner important learning opportunities within the medical school curriculum.

Our findings demonstrated that pre-clinical exposure to incarcerated individuals and prison health education provided a unique setting for medical students to develop an increased sense of social responsibility and accountability.