Education
The Department of Community Medicine and Health Care's educational responsibilities are focused on medical and dental students, residents, the public health workforce, and other health care professionals.
The Department plays an important role in the Medical School's undergraduate curriculum. Community Medicine faculty members participated in many of the ten courses composing the curriculum. Several of its members serve as section heads within courses or as members of course coordinating committees. In addition, the Department provides academic appointments to Pro Health Physicians MSO whose physicians provide ambulatory teaching sites for over 70 medical students.
Community oriented primary care is the governing philosophy of the Community-Based Education Program. This approach, developed in the 1960's, incorporates community needs assessment, population based planning and intervention, community participation and evaluation. The program is integrated into all four years of School of Medicine's curriculum. Community-based Education has developed educational experiences with a variety of community programs throughout the state that compliments the classroom learning in the School of Medicine. Currently, medical students work with more than 300 community programs located in 61 Connecticut towns.
» More about the Community-Based Education Program
The Student Continuity Practice (SCP) is a three year primary care continuity experience which provides students with a longitudinal immersion and mentoring experience in a community based generalist practice. SCP gives students the opportunity to develop a conceptual understanding of medicine while developing skills in history taking, physical examination and clinical reasoning. It also provides students exposure to personal and professional issues that accompany medical training and practice. Students spend 1/2 day per week with their physician preceptor in sites that are usually within 1 hour from the medical school.
In addition providing undergraduate medical education, faculty from the Department of Community Medicine and Health Care also present topics in Health Law and Ethics and the Social Sciences to Medical Residents.
The Master of Public Health program, sponsored by the Department of Community Medicine and Health Care, offers an integrated theory-practice curriculum leading to the Master of Public Health (MPH) degree and is nationally accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH). Since its accreditation in October 1984 and the award of its first MPH degrees in August of 1985, the Program has become an integral part of health professions education at the University. The MPH program's mission is to prepare public health professionals to achieve high standards of leadership through exemplary scholarship in teaching, application, discovery and integration of public health knowledge in order to benefit the well-being of Connecticut residents and others through organized, comprehensive, effective and just action. MPH students are offered innumerable resources for their graduate level studies including a faculty of professors from numerous population-based health sciences within the University of Connecticut. They, as well as leading public health practitioners throughout the state, offer students considerable breadth of knowledge and experience in the public health field. The curriculum requires competition of 10 graduate courses (one for each of the public health core disciplines, public health law, research methods and three selectives addressing core functions of public health), two-four additional electives in a student’s substantive area of interest a practicum and capstone project. To date, more than 750 degrees have been conferred.
» More about the Graduate Program in Public Health
The Department is committed to helping health care and public health professionals improve their skills through continuing educational experiences.
During the academic year, the Department offers the Community Medicine Seminar Series, a free lunch time seminar series offered featuring dynamic, prominent regional and national speakers on a variety of topics of interest to physicians, students, health professionals, researchers, policy makers, and the general public. » More about the Seminar Series
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Did You Know? |
- Through the Community-Based Education Program, medical students work with more than 300 community programs located in 61 Connecticut towns.
- Over 110, Master in Public Health Students are enrolled in the Graduate Program in Public Health. The majority of students (approximately 75%) are enrolled on a
full-time basis.
- The Department of Community Medicine provides academic appointments to Pro Health Physicians who provide ambulatory teaching sites to 70 medical students.
- The Department sponsors a seminar series program during the academic year that brings regionally and nationally known speakers to campus.
- Through the Alcohol Research Center at the
University of Connecticut Health Center, researchers in
the Department of Community Medicine have received a
grant from NIAAA to develop a training institute based
upon the World Health Organization’s ASSIST screening,
brief intervention and referral to treatment (SBIRT)
program.
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