Community action projects: community-engaged quality improvement for medical students.

Background: Healthcare Quality Improvement (QI) is an essential skill for medical students to acquire, although there is insufficient empirical research which suggests the best educational methods to do this. This study explored the experiences of medical students participating in two versions of a Community Action Project (CAP) which gave medical students the opportunity to learn QI skills in a community setting. The first version (GPCAP) was pre-pandemic where students identified and delivered QI projects on placement in general practice to improve local population health.

Community-engaged primary care medical education.

Background: Community-engaged medical education (CEME) requires medical schools to partner with local communities to help address community priorities, whilst enhancing the learning experiences of students. Current literature on CEME has focused on evaluating its effects on students; however, there remains a gap in exploring whether CEME initiatives can have a sustainable impact for communities.

Approach: The Community Action Project (CAP) at Imperial College London, is an eight-week, community-engaged, quality improvement project for Year 3 medical students.

Cultural diversity and inclusion in UK medical schools.

Background: Racially minoritised groups across the globe continue to experience differential outcomes in both health and education. Medical schools can play an instrumental role in addressing both these disparities, by creating inclusive student communities and ensuring that tomorrow's doctors can care for our increasingly diverse populations.

Objectives: This collaborative, qualitative study led by three United Kingdom (UK) institutions aimed to explore the perspectives of Heads of Primary Care Teaching (HOTs) on cultural diversity and inclusion across UK medical schools.

WATCCH: a multiprofessional approach to widening participation in healthcare careers.

Background: Students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are underrepresented in higher education and healthcare careers. Whilst most healthcare-related widening participation schemes focus on one healthcare profession, the Widening Access to Careers in Community Healthcare (WATCCH) programme at Imperial College London supports participation in a range of community healthcare careers. We aim to evaluate the impact of WATCCH on students' perceptions and aspirations towards community healthcare careers.

Promoting cultural diversity and inclusion in undergraduate primary care education.

In this article, we review key factors in promoting a culturally diverse and inclusive learning environment for all undergraduate medical students, and the role of primary care educators in preparing students to work with diverse teams, patients and communities. These factors include approaches to curriculum and assessment, student community, faculty development and recruitment, and wider institutional factors. By highlighting these, including areas where further research, evaluation and consensus are needed, we hope to support further discourse on how primary care educators can promote culturally diverse and inclusive undergraduate medical education.

Medical applicant general practice experience and career aspirations: a questionnaire study.

Background: Increasing access to general practice work experience placements for school students is a strategy for improving general practice recruitment, despite limited evidence and concerns surrounding equity of access to general practice experiences.

Aims: To examine the association between undertaking general practice experience and the perceptions of general practice as an appealing future career among prospective medical applicants. To identify socioeconomic factors associated with obtaining general practice experience.

Vertical leadership in highly complex and unpredictable health systems.

This article explores how the concept of vertical leadership development might help health organizations cope with and thrive within highly complex and unpredictable health systems, looking at concepts of VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) and RUPT (rapid, unpredictable, paradoxical and tangled).