Community and Family Case Study: a community-based educational strategy to promote Five Star Doctors for the 21st century

Introduction: Community and Family Case Study (CFCS) is an approach to community-based education (CBE) in the undergraduate medical curriculum in the School of Medical Sciences (SMS), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). CBE is a means of achieving educational relevance to community needs and subsequently in implementing a community oriented educational programme. The objective of this paper is to disseminate medical students’ perceptions of CFCS as an approach to CBE.

Materials and Methods: a survey on CFCS was carried out in 2003 among 4^th year undergraduate medical students of the USM belonging to the academic session 2002-2003. Sample size was 78. Data was collected utilizing a mixed type questionnaire containing different attributes of CFCS as a strategy of CBE and presented as numbers and percentage distribution.

Results: Fifty nine to eighty percent of the respondents perceived that leadership skills, positive attitude towards rural community, team building skills, communication skills and in-depth understanding of the health beliefs of socio-culturally diverse people have developed from the participation in the CFCS.

Conclusion: CFCS is a good approach of CBE, which promotes the development of leadership, team building and communication skills and an in-depth understanding of the socio-culturally diverse population which are the criteria for five star doctors advocated by the World Health Organization (WHO). Curriculum planners should give due importance on CBE and its effective implementation through close collaboration between health and educational administration. This paper offers other medical schools who wish to shift their curricula towards community based education, an opportunity to use the approach.