When students run the clinic, whos watching? A call for a framework to evaluate student-run clinics
I have heard faculty members complain, on occasion, that students develop bad habits at these clinics because of inadequate supervision. Certainly the quality of care and the ethics of students ‘practicing’ on those who cannot afford other care should be reviewed.
-E. Poulsen, JAMA (1995)1
IntroductionStudent-run clinics (SRCs), in which medical and health professions students take responsibility for operational and logistics management of charitable clinics,2 are a powerful expression of service-based learning: students hone clinical and administrative skills while communities receive essential medical services that might otherwise be unavailable. Yet over the past 20 years, these clinics have begun globalising2–5 and increasing in complexity.5 This is happening within a landscape of limited evidence,5 6 growing concerns about ethics and substandard care,7–13
