Submission ID 78067
| Code | OD-4-3 |
|---|---|
| At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to: | |
| Category | Medical Education |
| Type | Oral |
| Will the presenter be a: | Other |
| Presenter Other | Clinical Faculty/Doctoral Candidate |
| Title | Educating Future Physicians for Francophone Official Language Minority Communities in Canada: A Case Study |
| Background/Purpose | Over one million Francophone Canadians live in official language minority communities (OLMC) outside Québec. Availability of linguistically-appropriate care to these OLMCs is lacking, resulting in poorer quality of care. To address this health equity gap, the FrancoDoc program was created in 2015 to identify Francophone/Francophile medical students at Anglophone medical faculties and equip them with skills to increase their medical French abilities. Little is known, however, about the affordances and limitations of this educational endeavour. |
| Methods | Our qualitative instrumental single case study explored participants' experience with FrancoDoc, while also examining factors shaping the delivery of linguistically-appropriate healthcare services to OLMCs. We conducted semi-structured interviews with medical students from across Canada and thematically analyzed these using a constant comparative approach. |
| Results | Four main themes were derived from 12 interviews: factors facilitating French language learning; barriers to French language learning; broader issues shaping linguistically-appropriate healthcare provision, and specific recommendations to improve healthcare education to better prepare learners to provide care to OLMCs. |
| Discussion | Medical student participants are highly motivated to engage in educational activities linked to FrancoDoc. Their efforts are nonetheless frequently thwarted by barriers such as time constraints, irregular event programming, lack of regular clinical learning opportunities, and lukewarm support from Faculties of Medicine. If medical faculties are to realize their obligations to the OLMCs that they serve, recognition of language as a specific social determinant of health and more robust institutional supports for initiatives like FrancoDoc are paramount. |
| Keyword 1 | social accountability |
| Keyword 2 | social determinants of health |
| Keyword 3 | undergraduate medical education |
| Abstract content most relevant to: (check all that apply) | Undergraduate Medical Education |
| Abstract Track - First Choice | Social Accountability |
| Authors | Brett Schrewe Tatiana Yeuchyk Melanie El Hafid Joyce Nyhof-Young Brett Schrewe |
