9018 Background: Cancer survivorship care remains underemphasized in medical education despite a growing population of cancer survivors with complex long-term needs. Identifying effective strategies to integrate survivorship education into the medical curriculum is essential. Kolb’s experiential learning theory, which posits that effective learning occurs through iterative cycles of concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation, may offer a structured framework well suited to teaching survivorship care. Methods: We evaluated the effectiveness of utilizing repeated Kolb’s cycles to teach a 15-week cancer survivorship course during our 2024 Fall semester. 12 learners (9 pre-clerkship medical students and 3 premedical students) attended weekly sessions mediated by the instructor and invited guests. In-class experiences were paired with reflective homework assignments also tasking students to develop new concepts in 4 domains of interest: patients as survivors (PS), caregivers’ issues (CI), illness experience (IE), and interprofessional care (IPC). Students shared concepts in the next session then began the Kolb's cycle again. For their final assignment, they interviewed a cancer survivor then created a treatment plan applying the concepts they developed during the course. An anonymous post-course survey assessed learner satisfaction and perceptions of Kolb’s cycle, and a one-year follow-up survey evaluated comfort addressing survivorship issues during clerkships and the course’s impact on survivor care. Results: Students generated 259 new concepts (PS: 74; CI: 49; IE: 56; and IPC: 80) across the course and applied an average of ten self-developed concepts per student on the final assignment. On the immediate post-course survey, 12/12 students were highly satisfied with the course and 9/12 students rated all four stages of Kolb’s cycle as extremely or mostly helpful. A year later, 6/9 medical students now on clinical clerkships responded to a follow-up survey. Most reported that the course had a significant lasting impact on their understanding of survivorship issues (4/6) and overall patient management (4/6). Qualitative comments describe greater holistic awareness, comfort with difficult conversations, and attention to survivorship-focused referrals. Students also reported being extremely or mostly confident addressing survivorship issues in the following domains: PS 4/6, CI 3/6, IE 4/6, and IPC 3/6. Conclusions: Kolb’s experiential learning theory is an effective framework for teaching a cancer survivorship course to pre-clerkship medical students. Students were highly satisfied with this learning method and able to use this model to successfully develop and apply new concepts. Follow-up during clerkships demonstrated sustained learning and a lasting capacity to apply this material to new patient encounters.
Gao et al. (Thu,) studied this question.