Te Vaka Ola: The evaluation of implementing ethnic specific Pacific health curriculum to clinical medical students at the University of Auckland.

Abstract

Introduction Pacific peoples in Aotearoa New Zealand face wide-ranging health issues and it is crucial that medical students learn how to approach and manage these from a culturally knowledgeable perspective. In 2024, the University of Auckland added novel Pacific ethnic-specific clinical case studies to the medical curriculum (for all students in years five and six), that is focused on Pacific people’s health and how to navigate clinical care by teams and wider health service systems. This study describes the course content and reports on the year five student evaluation survey findings from this new curriculum component.

Methods: Half-day workshops that included ethnic-specific medical case studies were designed by a working group of Pacific academics from the University of Auckland and input from current medical students of Pacific ethnicity. Descriptive statistics were extracted from post-course evaluation survey data that included responses from 107 students.

Findings: Student evaluations indicated a high level of satisfaction with both the workshop and the learning environment. The majority of students reported a positive learning experience and a strong sense of belonging within the cohort. Free-text responses indicated that the most helpful aspect of learning were the real-world cases and group discussions.

Conclusion: Student feedback evaluations indicated that the Pacific health curriculum was received favourably overall. Given that students particularly enjoyed the case-based learning aspect, these could be further developed and included in other years of the university medical course. To facilitate ongoing course improvement and real-world applicability, future course iterations must prioritise the collection, analysis, and implementation of student feedback.