(153) Learning Through Teaching: Using a Volunteer Sex Ed Middle School Program to Supplement Medical Student’s Sexual Health Counseling Skills

Abstract Introduction Adolescent sexual health education is foundational preventive care, yet many U.S. school systems lack consistent, evidence-based, and inclusive sexual education programming, even during medical training. Gaps are especially evident in content addressing consent, gender identity, and contraceptive options. The Teen Promise Project (TPP), founded in 2015, is a sexual health education initiative led by medical students that partners with middle schools across Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia to deliver comprehensive, age-appropriate, and inclusive sexual education. While initially designed to empower adolescents and decrease teenage pregnancy and STI rates, the program also serves as a unique educational opportunity for medical students to enhance their communication and counseling skills and comfort addressing sensitive health topics with adolescents. Objective To assess the impact of TPP participation on medical students’ comfort and confidence in teaching sexual health topics in age-appropriate terminology. To evaluate the educational value of TPP as a supplement to pre-clinical medical education. To identify gaps between medical school curricula and topics covered through community-based sexual education. Methods Medical student volunteers participating in TPP during the 2023–2024 academic year completed pre- and post-curriculum surveys via REDCap (IRB NCR235266). Surveys assessed self-reported confidence and comfort teaching specific sexual health topics covered in the curricula using Likert-scale style questions. Data were analyzed as the proportion of respondents agreeing or completely agreeing with each prompt, indicating comfort in counseling on that topic. Results Thirty-four medical students participated in the evaluation; 85.3% identified as female, and 50.0% were first-year medical students. Pre-curriculum, volunteers reported highest comfort teaching consent and contraception (97.1%) and lowest comfort teaching sexual and gender identities (73.6%). Post-curriculum, comfort teaching consent, contraception, and safe sexual practices increased to 100% for each category, while comfort teaching puberty/anatomy decreased to 86.4%. Following participation, 100% of volunteers agreed or completely agreed that they felt confident in their knowledge of sexual education, comfortable working with adolescents, and that volunteering reinforced their desire to work in medicine and deepened their understanding of social determinants of health. Interestingly, 29.1% of participants were unsure whether topics addressed by TPP were included in their formal medical school curriculum. Conclusions Participation in the Teen Promise Project significantly enhanced medical students’ comfort and confidence in teaching comprehensive sexual health topics, particularly those addressing safe sex, contraception, and consent. This study can begin to demonstrate a potential dual benefit of TPP: it provides adolescents access to medically accurate, inclusive education and medical students with experiential learning in their communities. Integrating similar community-engaged educational models within medical training may strengthen future physicians’ capacity to address sensitive sexual health issues with empathy, accuracy, and cultural competence. Disclosure No.