Background/Purpose: Based on data from the Rheumatology Workforce Study, there are currently insufficient rheumatologists to serve the needs of the population. The purpose of this longitudinal observational study is to investigate the impact of developing a student-led Rheumatology Interest Group on medical student interest in rheumatology at a single institution. We report updated longitudinal follow-up data on the impact of this intervention at the two year follow-up stage.

Methods: A student-led Rheumatology Interest Group was established at our institution in April 2015. The Interest Group runs several meetings per year, including a session on careers in rheumatology, finding research projects and mentors, and joint injection workshops. To assess the impact of the Interest Group on medical student interest in rheumatology we collected data prior to and subsequent to development of the Interest Group based on three parameters: the number of medical student abstract submissions to the University Research Day, the number of medical students enrolling in the rheumatology elective, and the number of manuscripts published by faculty with medical students. The mean number of student-rheumatology interactions per 6 months in the pre and post intervention periods was assessed for each parameter. Data lock for the current analysis was in April 2017 and analysis was performed using GraphPad Prism version 5.00 for Windows (GraphPad Software, San Diego, CA).

Results: Analysis of the two years of follow up data indicates that there continues to be a significant increase in medical student enrollment in the rheumatology elective following the Interest Group development, with a mean number of students per 6 months of 2.0 ± 0.89 in the pre-intervention period and 5.25 ± 2.06 in the post-intervention period (p=0.0083). The number of abstract submissions also significantly increased from 0.5 ± 0.84 to 6.5 ±4.65 (p=0.0131). Finally, the number of manuscripts submitted by student-faculty dyads increased from 0.17 ± 0.41 to 1.5 ± 0.58 (p=0.0026).

Conclusion: Based on data at two years of follow-up, a simple and low cost intervention of developing a student-led interest group has dramatically increased ongoing student engagement with rheumatology at a single institution.

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ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/impact-of-a-student-led-rheumatology-interest-group-on-medical-student-interest-in-rheumatology-2/