It Takes a Village: Utilizing a Community-based Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship Model at a Regional Medical Campus to Provide the Core Emergency Medicine Clerkship Experience

ObjectivesThe objective was to evaluate the efficacy of a required emergency medicine (EM) experience embedded in a new community-based longitudinal integrated clerkship (LIC) for participating students and faculty. MethodsWe developed and implemented a community-based LIC EM experience. The experience included 10 clinical shifts, one emergency medical services prehospital care shift, four didactic sessions, one reflection, and an emergency medicine simulation session. Students' outcomes were assessed using end-of-year surveys, focus groups, an emergency medicine subject examination, simulation performance, and clinical evaluations of the students by faculty. Faculty were recruited, underwent faculty development, and were evaluated by students. Faculty perceptions were gathered from a focus group and faculty retention rates were collected. ResultsThree cohorts of LIC students (total N = 61) have completed their core emergency medicine experience in our community-based LIC. Among students, 76% to 95% rated the overall quality of teaching as very good or excellent and 66% to 100% rated the quality of learning in their community-based setting as very good or excellent. All students who passed the EM subject examination achieved the clinical competencies of the experience based on clinical evaluations. Among faculty, we have retained greater than 95% each year and they have reflected positively on their precepting experience. ConclusionsImplementing a required EM experience within a community-based LIC model can be an effective learning experience for students and perceived positively by community-based faculty. This model may offer an opportunity to expand clinical learning experiences in EM.