While its main focus is to improve healthcare career exposure for K-12 students, PhysioCamp creates a unique longitudinal opportunity for medical students to develop their leadership skills. As students progress through medical school, they can adapt their leadership roles to reflect the intensity of their schoolwork, and are encouraged to design projects that can be continued by committee leads and interns even after the medical student moves to a different role within the organization. The large non-medical student workforce within PhysioCamp contributes to project flexibility, as the medical students can delegate project tasks to interns [10]. Therefore, PhysioCamp contributes to the development of students’ leadership skills by encouraging their autonomy and ensuring that the organization is flexible enough to work around the demands of medical education [11]. Furthermore, PhysioCamp allows medical students to be involved in community care regardless of their school’s curriculum [12]. These characteristics distinguish PhysioCamp from other student-led organizations, where students’ involvement typically begins in the first year and leadership is passed off before students begin their clerkships [13].

Communication is an essential leadership skill, especially in patient care [14]. Within PhysioCamp, scheduled communication, like weekly updates and monthly meetings, mirrors professional expectations for physicians [15]. This fosters a culture of regularly checking in with other team members and being mindful of availability changes. Through internal survey results, we found that weekly email check-ins with all PhysioCamp team members improved communication by providing an open space for members to request support for any barriers they face. Additionally, regularly scheduled meetings serve as a forum for team members to talk through complicated concepts, work through any points of confusion, and vocalize new ideas. This continuity of communication builds community within the organization, increasing team member comfort and facilitating mentoring [16].

The continuity of students’ participation in PhysioCamp allows them to gain practice with frequently used leadership methods, including mentoring, coaching, action learning, networking, and experiential learning [11]. In particular, PhysioCamp focuses on action learning and peer networking, via regular meetings with other medical students and pre-health leaders every month. Networking, peer mentoring, and leadership mentoring are fundamental to developing leadership skills, and within PhysioCamp medical students have the unique opportunity of forming network connections as both a senior leader and a peer [17]. On internal surveys, interns reported that they highly valued the interactions, mentorships, and advising that were offered through PhysioCamp. Furthermore, PhysioCamp’s continuity of leadership can give senior medical students, newer medical students, and other high school graduates a chance to learn from each other. Medical students in PhysioCamp also have the opportunity to develop several skills that will prepare them to be a medical educator. While all students will serve in a mentoring role, additional roles allow for creation of curriculum materials and developing new activities for the program [18].

When comparing PhysioCamp’s leadership development initiatives to those described by Till et al. [11], several suggestions by the authors closely aligned with the design of PhysioCamp. For medical student leaders, one of PhysioCamp’s greatest strengths is the flexibility it provides for leaders to pursue their specific interests. PhysioCamp also emphasizes connecting and working with others, particularly with peers or near-peer team members. However, PhysioCamp has not yet created an official leadership curriculum, nor is the program directly integrated into the medical school curriculum, as it is a student-led initiative. As PhysioCamp continues to develop, leadership development will be assessed through formal biannual evaluations. With this, we hope to obtain further evidence for the program’s benefits for medical student leadership development. Additional future initiatives will include creating opportunities for alumni involvement as advisors or members of the board of directors to guide other medical students in their leadership journey. PhysioCamp is also taking steps to track participation trends, both for in-person sessions and virtual events.

In summary, by allowing medical students to stay involved with PhysioCamp leadership throughout their medical education, PhysioCamp has decreased the frequency of leadership turnover, and allowed each of those leaders to develop skills in various avenues: teaching both in-person and virtual events, mentoring both in-person and virtual pre-med students, creating age-appropriate educational materials, organizing in-person and virtual events, and more. These skills will be advantageous when teaching and interacting with medical students in residency and will also be helpful to PhysioCamp alumni entering a career in academic medicine.