Today’s healthcare professionals face increasingly profound challenges serving communities in need. In the post-COVID era, widening healthcare disparities and the need to work with diverse social infrastructures, future-proofing medical students required the inculcation of transdisciplinary skills coupled with creative problem solving and the ability to innovate to meet the needs of vulnerable populations in society.
At the heart of this NUS Medicine service learning programme is the humanitarian purpose of respect for human life, alleviating suffering and maintaining human dignity both locally and globally. This programme is designed with the support of community partners, aimed to provide platforms to nurture community-responsive and compassionate healthcare leaders of tomorrow.
Students are equipped with transdisciplinary skills and mentorship by key leaders in health humanitarianism outreach both locally and internationally. This curriculum views student’s development as a journey of personal growth through deepening self-reflexivity in order to serve others with purpose and intention. Modules offered cover a broad range of relevant topics including: community project design, monitoring and evaluation training, community service leadership development, social innovation, global health & humanitarian action, compassion training etc.
Through experiential service learning courses, students are immersed into real-world contexts providing them with authentic opportunities to apply their learning under the guidance of committed mentors. Students are also connected with a diverse range of opportunities to serve and meet the needs of vulnerable persons and communities locally and globally. Student learn by active construction of ideas and design of projects, present these initiatives to pitch for support and funding, and finally carrying out to the project and then team reflection and evaluation of their work as a community of practice.
