Electives in Community-based Health Education: Field-level Implementation Experiences in Undergraduate Medical Education

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The undergraduate competency-based (CBME) curriculum has introduced Electives as an opportunity to learn in clinical, research, and outreach settings through practical application, which regular teaching may not fully offer. In community medicine, health communication in outreach settings is pivotal in early medical training, yet it is not adequately covered through existing communication modules in the syllabus. Therefore, we implemented an elective on community-based health education to address this gap. The elective was based on a structured lesson plan that utilised a variety of teaching methods, with a focus on interactive, scenario-based discussions and reflective exercises. As a result, students were able to plan and deliver a health education program in an outreach setting, specifically in schools, using self-designed health education materials. The small-group format, structured planning, and regular feedback all contributed to positive outcomes, enriching the students’ learning experience. However, the short duration restricted the number of topics and settings for conducting health education sessions. For a subject of this nature, electives provide an appropriate platform to explore innovative teaching techniques and to develop a nuanced understanding of how to structure community-based activities with tangible learning outcomes.