Primary Care in Correctional Medicine: Redefining Medical Education for Incarcerated Patients
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Incarcerated patients are highly vulnerable as they experience barriers to medical care before, during, and after incarceration.This predisposes them to higher rates of advanced medical comorbidities, chronic medical conditions, substance use disorders, and psychiatric conditions, resulting in reduced life expectancy and poorer health outcomes.Residency training centers, particularly in family medicine, are the foundation of medical care for vulnerable populations, including those with a history of incarceration.Nonetheless, physicians and medical students experience diQculties in honing medical care toward this unique patient population while inadvertently holding stigmatizing views.With the United States' imprisonment population of 2.4 million, and with 95% of incarcerated patients eventually returning to their communities, understanding physical, mental, and social risks can improve medical counseling, delivery, and quality of care all while reducing recividism.We applaud the authors of "Third-year medical students' self-perceived knowledge about health disparities and community medicine" for highlighting medical students' attitudes toward health disparities and incarcerated patients.After surveying students' level of comfort in providing care for a variety of underserved patients, the study found that they were least as comfortable in caring for incarcerated individuals as any other group, including adolescents, the elderly, and immigrants/refugees.
Source: PRiMER
Authors: Manasicha Wongpaiboon, Jackson L. Shelton
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4401749222