Primary Care Research Fellow Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons New York, New York, United States
Background: There is increasing interest in ensuring that public and population health (PHH) training occurs during the pre-clinical years of medical education [1]. The Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) requires schools to teach the medical consequences of societal issues, health care delivery, health inequities, health systems science, and skills to serve a diverse society. Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons (VP&S) does not have a concentrated, expert based, standardized curriculum to expose pre-clinical students to PHH. Objective: PHAM-C was developed to help meet LCME goals, address student needs, and bolster partnerships between Columbia’s health science schools. The summer 2023 pilot aimed to understand accessibility, practicality, and integration into the existing orientation structure. Design/Methods: Students and faculty from Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health and VP&S developed an interactive, online, and learner-paced curriculum with four units: Foundations of Public Health, Methods in Public Health, Determinants of Public Health, and Trends and Actions in Public Health. The committee partnered with an emergency medicine physician who is a climate health expert to develop an innovative climate health module in the Determinants of Public Health unit. PHAM-C included videos, readings, learning checks, and discussion board posts. Students from VP&S public health adjacent interest groups were invited to participate in the pilot; 19 expressed interest. Feedback was received through unit specific online surveys and Zoom office hours. Results: At the end of the pilot, 23 unit surveys, 12 discussion board posts, and 5 final reflections were completed. Participants indicated their preferred units (Table 1), that content met the learning objectives and most units took between 2-4 hours. Themes were: need for updated videos, desire for more indigenous history, preference for cases over theory, and preference for mixed media formats. The pilot feedback will be used to update the content prior to a roll out for all incoming VP&S students in 2024.
Conclusion(s): The pilot study showed that PHAM-C can feasibly be implemented with adjustments to content and modality to increase student engagement. Incorporation into the pre-orientation curriculum can serve as an introduction to public health concepts that map to LCME goals and will be revisited throughout the medical school curriculum. 1. Johnson SB, Fair MA, Howley LD, et al. Teaching Public and Population Health in Medical Education: An Evaluation Framework. Acad Med. 2020;95(12):1853-1863. doi:10.1097/ACM.0000000000003737