Medical Education: Student Experiences with a 9-hour Elective Exploring Adoption and Foster Care Within Medical Practice

Background: Adoption and foster care is notably common within the US. Annually, 400-500,000 children live within foster care and in 2019 alone, over 60,000 youth were legally adopted from public welfare departments throughout the US. Add to that number the thousands of children adopted privately or internationally and there are myriad opportunities for physicians to interact in some way with adoptive/foster families.

Methods: A 9-hour elective, entitled Adoption and Foster Care: Considerations for Medical Practice, has been provided annually since 2019 for medical students at the Medical College of Wisconsin. The elective aims to educate medical students about the health care needs and considerations for patients impacted by adoption and/or foster care. Content knowledge was assessed prior to and following participation; participant feedback and satisfaction ratings were elicited following each session.

Results: Across three annual offerings, 44 medical students completed the 9-hour elective. Students showed significant gains in foster care/adoption knowledge and nearly all felt the experience enhanced their medical education. A large majority anticipated that the content would help them "a lot" in their future medical practice.

Conclusion: The adoption and foster care community present unique biological, psychological, and social needs that are important for healthcare providers to recognize. A medical education elective that focused on adoption and foster care was well received and deemed to be relevant to medical education.