Enhancing Interprofessional Community Engagement and Humanistic Interactions in Health Professional Education in Salvador, Brazil: The Programa Candeal Experience

Twenty years of existing medical literature speak to a global interest in interprofessional experiences and the role of community engagement in the formation of 21st century health professionals, with recent literature highlighting shortcomings in the ability to form satisfactory therapeutic alliances with patients of lower socioeconomic status. A paucity of literature regarding effective interventions to rectify these gaps in care remains. This manuscript reports the findings of a retrospective analysis of participant satisfaction with Programa Candeal, a previously un-evaluated interprofessional health education program at the Bahiana School of Medicine and Public Health in Salvador, Brazil, seeking to improve the capacity of health professional students to work successfully on interdisciplinary health care teams through hands-on experience interacting with disenfranchised populations outside of the traditional roles of provider and patient. Results of a mixed quantitative-qualitative survey reveal that Programa Candeal is successful in encouraging health professional students to practice community engagement, cultivates a literacy with the concept of multi professional teamwork, and promotes humanistic interactions with community members at some of the widest socioeconomic divides in Brazil. This manuscript also highlights the relative ease of implementing a semi-automated online evaluation protocol without undue administrative burden in a low-resource environment.