Bridging students and communities: a scoping review of service-learning in veterinary education.

Service-learning programs require balanced community partnership frameworks ensuring equitable reciprocal benefit.

This scoping review examined 36 studies on service-learning outcomes in veterinary education, identifying six core educational themes: skill building, career motivation, professional identity formation, mentorship support, empathy cultivation, and social justice orientation. While all studies documented positive student-centered learning outcomes, only one-third evaluated community partner perspectives, revealing a critical gap in community-integrated assessment. The research reveals that despite service-learning programs' intended mutual benefit model, veterinary education literature predominantly emphasizes institutional and student outcomes rather than assessing community impact or meeting served population needs. The authors recommend veterinary educators develop intentional community partnership frameworks balancing student experiential learning with demonstrated community benefit and meaningful stakeholder representation. This shift would strengthen ethical clinical practice models and ensure service-learning programs function as genuinely reciprocal educational experiences that equitably benefit both students and communities served.

This summary was distilled by AI and may occasionally misinterpret data. Confirm critical details with the primary literature before clinical application.