Bridging students and communities: a scoping review of service-learning in veterinary education

The purpose of this scoping review was to compile reported outcomes in relation to service-learning in veterinary medicine and identify underrepresented areas that warrant further initiative to support a more intentional model of community partnership. The Bramer et al method was utilized in this scoping review across 3 bibliographic databases to obtain a comprehensive literature search, yielding 715 eligible publications for screening. The screening process was charted with the use of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines. All citations were initially double-screened, with conflicts resolved by a third reviewer; in the final stages, fulltext screening was conducted by 2 reviewers. Only models of veterinary service-learning publications were included in the review, excluding all those in which education of veterinary students was not the primary population. Results yielded 36 studies for review that all documented student-centered outcomes, with only 12 mentioning community partners. Six core themes were noted across the studies evaluated, including skill building, shaping of career motivations and identity, mentorship as a support structure, and development of empathy and social justice orientation. While community engagement models in veterinary medicine are mutually beneficial by design, with clear benefits to experiential learning, there has been a lack of exploration past an internal institutionalized focus with limited representation of community perspective. A clearer understanding of community outcomes in service-learning programs is critical in supporting an equitable program design that offers a more meaningful and ethical clinical practice model while, in parallel, meeting the needs of the populations they aim to serve.