Assessing patient satisfaction at a medical student-organized free community skin cancer screening

Skin cancer screening is a safe and simple screening test in medicine. To provide skin cancer screenings for the Kansas City (KC) metropolitan area, students from local medical schools collaborated with dermatologists to organize the first annual collaborative skin cancer screening event.

To assess patient satisfaction and barriers to dermatologic care, participants completed a survey, which included multiple-choice questions addressing demographics, access to dermatologic care, and event satisfaction. Statistical significance was determined using Fisher's Exact and chi-square tests.

A total of 48 screenings were performed and 46 attendees participated in the study. The majority of participants were female (61%), White (65%), English-speaking (80%), with at least a bachelor's degree (72%) and health insurance (78%). Most participants had not been seen for a skin concern in the past year (70%) and had never attended a community screening event (89%). Many participants (50%) stated they would not have had an annual skin check without the event. Participants were largely satisfied with the event, and most reported being very likely to attend again. Race was associated with prior attendance at a screening event (p = 0.045) and reporting cost (p = 0.0099) or lack of insurance (p = 0.0016) as barriers to care. Younger age was associated with first-time screening attendance (p = 0.004).

Despite being free and open to the public, the event primarily attracted groups not traditionally underserved. These findings support ongoing efforts to expand community-based screening initiatives in the KC area.