Abstract

Social responsibility and accountability in corporate and professional settings is increasingly recognized and many medical schools and professional colleges are now incorporating social responsibility teaching in their curriculum and training. This allows training of professionals to understand the issues facing the society in which they serve. Community health needs are seldom isolated to physical needs but encompass a myriad of social, legal and systemic factors and constraints and thus necessitates an interdisciplinary approach. Meanwhile, such interdisciplinary efforts require a more comprehensive and holistic approach. This proposal recognises the need for an integrated interdisciplinary teaching and learning approach to social responsibility.

An e-learning platform will be developed based on individual cases and their narratives. Such cases will focus on the vulnerable population and issues in the community e.g. elderly health care, poverty, caged home, domestic abuse, offender health, domestic maids, asylum seekers, new immigrant, cross border children. Such issues will include physical illnesses and risk, health status, health provision and access, social constraints, legal constraints etc. Learning outcomes of the cases can be general (e.g. for general education) in which classes can be interdisciplinary or discipline specific.