A learning session improved medical students’ attitudes about caring for older adults with food insecurity. The project was detailed in a report published last week in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
Few programs aimed at improving food insecurity for older adults include community leaders in the classroom. To address this, a medical student organized a classroom-based, community-service learning session at Long School of Medicine, UT Health San Antonio that integrated insight from community leaders with food insecurity expertise.
The session, called “Food Insecurity as We Age,” was added to a portion of a class for second-year medical students in 2021 and 2022. The segment was taught by a geriatrician, and then included a panel with local food insecurity experts: The president and CEO of the San Antonio Food Bank and the director of Meals on Wheels San Antonio.
Before and after the session, the class received surveys and nearly 50% of students completed each round of surveys.
“Our session fulfilled preclinical curriculum needs while improving medical student attitudes toward and self-efficacy in caring for older adults with food insecurity. Students enjoyed the community-service learning technique of learning from local community experts and valued their insights into patient care and social determinants of health,” the authors wrote.
In addition to the surveys, more data came from the other scores. The students overall had better knowledge of food insecurity risk factors in older adults, confidence in addressing the food needs of older adults, knowledge about its importance, and awareness of programs to help with food insecurity in the older population. Most of the students were in favor of adding the non-mandatory session into the annual curriculum so it’d be repeated for future students.
The authors pointed out that other medical schools have launched programs to improve learning about geriatrics through community service.
“Our strategies to incorporate geriatrics content into the preclinical curriculum were varied and any aspect could be utilized by educators at other institutions,” the authors wrote.
