Abstract
Non-physician health professions play a critical role in extending resources to manage chronic conditions, prevent disability and promote health in medically underserved environments.
In order to diminish disparate care for health, students must first comprehend issues of health care access, limited resources, social justice, oppression and violence, culture and diversity that influence health beliefs and behaviors.
Transformative learning is critical and involves multiple and repeated exposures to complex issues allowing students to grapple with uncertainty and link emotion with learning. Such experiences may occur with didactic instruction, but are best reinforced with exposure to authentic community contexts beyond the protective boundaries of the classroom
Most importantly, community-based learning experiences may foster the professional formation of students to include a commitment to addressing societal health needs beyond the care of individual patients. Such skills will be critical to address profound health needs in contemporary practice.
The purpose of this poster is to describe a constellation of various educational initiatives in the School of Pharmacy and Health Professions (SPAHP). The learning experiences are designed to provide students with exposure to authentic community-identified needs to form their identities as professionals who learn to effectively respond to diversity and disparities in health care.