Community service-learning in contemporary veterinary education is here to stay.

Abstract

Service-learning is an educational paradigm in which students learn important skills while delivering 1 or more services to a community in response to its self-declared needs. Service-learning is a powerful tool to augment academic knowledge gained in didactic settings with technical, practical, behavioral, and social skills developed in real-world contexts. It is grounded on the principles of reciprocal benefit, authentic partnership, social advocacy, and critical reflection. To date, community service-learning in veterinary education has focused on applications in shelter medicine and veterinary outreach, but may also include One Health, pathway building, and other community engagement scenarios. The rigorous evaluation of existing and planned initiatives, including their impact on student learning outcomes, will be an important area of future attention. Service-learning has the potential to advance all domains of competence in the Competency-Based Veterinary Education 2.0 Model and the allied Competency-Based Veterinary Education - Nursing Model. It is likely to become an impactful feature of all veterinary curricula, now and in the future. A focused series of manuscripts on veterinary service-learning will be launched in JAVMA in the coming months.