History and Activities Developed by Student Scientific Societies in Latin American Medical Education

Introduction: Student scientific societies (SSS) are learning communities where students develop their research competencies. Objectives: The aim of this article was to synthesize the sources that des-cribe the history and activities of SSS implemented in Latin American medical education programs. Methods: A narrative review was conducted exploring some online data-bases, namely, Scopus, Web of Science, PUBMED, SciELO, Redalyc and the Google Scholar search engine, where the following terms were searched: Student Scientific Society, research training and research competencies. The characteristics of definitions, history, organization, objectives and activities carried out by an SSS were summarized. Results: The sources indicate that an SSS is an extracurricular learning community. Its history indicates that most of them have emerged in medical education as a space to train future researchers, develop research competencies, improve clinical care, and expose students to new research experiences. Their activities are oriented towards promoting research from undergraduate studies. In medical education, the training of students in health promotion and disease prevention is added. SSS present variable or-ganizational structures that are led by students and may be supported by professors, graduates and researchers. Conclusion: SSS are considered extracurricular undergraduate spaces that allow the research training of students by exposing them to multiple aca-demic, scientific, production and social projection activities. Their origins allow them to be conceived as a training strategy that complements the curricular function.