Impact of a Service Learning Curriculum that Emphasizes Bidirectional Learning on Medical Students' Professional Identity Formation.

Introduction: Despite the many known benefits of service learning, little is known about the impact of service learning on medical students' professional identity formation. Purpose: The objective of our study was to assess the impact of a service learning curriculum that emphasized bidirectional learning on the professional identity of medical students. Methods: The community-based participatory research (CBPR) conceptual model, a model which emphasizes bidirectional learning between academic and community stakeholders, was utilized as a curricular framework for a required service-learning course at a single institution in North America. All 45 third year medical students enrolled in the course were included. Using a qualitative data analysis framework and the constant comparative method, the two researchers independently reviewed all 45 individual student reflections to identify themes that emerged and to iteratively create a codebook. A thematic analysis of the codes was then undertaken to answer the research question. Results: Themes from student reflections revealed the following: (1) The process of perspective-taking during bidirectional learning promotes becoming an empathetic physician. Enabling factors are empathy with stakeholders and seeing oneself as a future change agent. (2) The process of perspective-taking and reconciliation of learner/stakeholder beliefs with a goal of unifying around a common mission was expressed in several different ways: Learner pivots from their original belief to stakeholder's beliefBoth learner and stakeholder beliefs are incorporated into the final goalLearner keeps original beliefsEnabling factors are empathy, humility, and discernment. Conclusion: Bidirectional or reciprocal learning in service learning can promote professional characteristics such as empathy, humility, and discernment.