127 - Novel timely rehabilitation education for neurology clerkship students: impact on knowledge and inquiry

Objectives: Despite the increasing population need for rehabilitation care, most medical schools do not require student education in the principles and practice of rehabilitation medicine. Design, implementation, and assessment of developmentally appropriate rehabilitation education for future physicians is essential. The present study examines the impact of a novel required rehabilitation education intervention on medical student rehabilitation knowledge and inquiry.

Design: All medical students enrolled in a large urban medical school’s mandatory month-long neurology clerkship from January-June 2023 (n = 29) were required to participate in a novel three-part rehabilitation education program embedded within the clerkship that included a didactic, on-site experience at an inpatient rehabilitation facility, and a faculty-mentored debrief. Field data collected from the debrief sessions was analyzed using a hybrid deductive-inductive qualitative approach with targeted content analysis to identify themes in student learning and inquiry.

Results: Students (n=29; 100% of program participants) participated in the debrief. Six themes were distilled from the de-brief: new knowledge about the field of physiatry; new understanding of what rehabilitation therapists do; new understanding of the patient experience of post-acute rehabilitation; recognition of interprofessional collaboration in the rehabilitation setting; value for medical students of firsthand exposure to a rehabilitation setting; medical student ongoing learning needs related to rehabilitation and patient advocacy.

Conclusions: Embedding a threaded rehabilitation learning intervention within mandatory neurology clerkship education can foster new knowledge about the field of physiatry for medical students, instill new insight into the patient experience of rehabilitation, advance interprofessional understanding, and stimulate inquiry about topics in rehabilitation and opportunities for patient advocacy. This intervention provides a promising strategy for ensuring physiatry exposure within mandatory medical school education, fostering informed clinicians poised to collaborate with physiatrists and interprofessional rehabilitation colleagues, and equipping students to better educate and support patients across their full healthcare trajectories.