@article{10.22454/FamMed.2024.568265,
author = {Mazander, Megan and Rumenapp, Joseph and Lee, Derek and Ong, Charmaine and Floramo, Emily and Benjamins, Maureen and Chen, Melissa},
title = {Quantifying the Educational Value of a Student-Run Free Clinic},
journal = {Family Medicine},
volume = {56},
number = {3},
year = {2024},
month = {3},
pages = {176-179},
doi = {10.22454/FamMed.2024.568265},
abstract = {Background and Objectives: Student-run free clinics (SRFCs) are settings in which students in health professions gain clinical experience, often while providing free or reduced-cost health care to the surrounding community. The current literature quantifies the many benefits these clinics provide to their patients and the impact they have on students’ future careers; but few previous studies have assessed the financial impact of the education provided at an SRFC. We report on a net educational benefit, an educational benefit to educational cost ratio, and a net educational benefit to educational cost ratio of one SRFC from the perspective of the university.
Methods: We calculated the value of education by multiplying all student hours worked in the clinic by the associated value of 1 hour in the typical tuition-based curriculum. Clinic educational costs and student hours were obtained from clinic records from August 1, 2021 through July 31, 2022.
Results: We found the total educational value students received to be $73,571 over one academic year. The educational operating expenses of the clinic totaled $9,053, resulting in a benefit-cost ratio of 8.13.
Conclusions: This analysis demonstrated a potential financial advantage of operating an SRFC when assessing clinic education expenses in relation to the value of university-generated education. Our research may serve as a starting point to showcase the economic benefit of SRFCs to their parent institutions and encourage further analysis of other benefits SRFCs may provide to institutions of higher education.},
URL = {https://journals.stfm.org//familymedicine/2024/march/mazander-2023-0210/},
eprint = {https://journals.stfm.org//media/dipeuphf/mazander0210docx-2024-03-01-17-15.pdf},
}