Background
Training medical students in public health
Examples of changes over the last decades in the curricula of public health training in several medical schools around the world
Competencies in statistics and epidemiology as tools for conducting and understanding quantitative medical research
Evidence based medicine
Health promotion
Findings and insights
The experience of Sackler Faculty of Medicine in the adoption implementation and evaluation of competency-based medical education in public health
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Skills to appraise the quality of the various types of epidemiologic research and to acquire tools for comprehensive reading and understanding scientific literature according to EBM;
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Competency in efficient and precise literature search;
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Competency in basic statistical skills;
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Competency in planning and conducting research, i.e. knowledge of epidemiological methods including the various study designs, choice of an appropriate study population, methods for data collection, analysis and interpretation of study results;
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Competency in applying health promoting principles and strategies in the selection of disease prevention measures and recommendations;
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Competency in implementation of EBM techniques in public health decision making, e.g. immunizations and population screening; and
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Competency in examining and analyzing disease trends from a population perspective.
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In addition, we identified the importance of understanding the structure of health systems and of increasing the awareness of the role of the physician in these systems as a means of better pursuing the skill of practicing and advocating health promotion and disease prevention in the clinic.
Year | Before | After | ||
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Course name | Total number of hours | Course name | Total number of hours | |
1 | Statistics | 78 | Epidemiology, Statistics, and Research methods | 104 |
2 | Epidemiology | 39 | – | – |
2 | – | – | Health promotion: The physician’s role | 26 |
3 | Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) | 16 | Tools for practicing evidence based medicine | 16 |
3 | – | – | Selected paradigms in epidemiology and public health | 32 |
3 | Use of epidemiologic methods in clinical decision making | 10 | Use of epidemiologic methods in clinical decision making | 12 |
4 | – | – | E-learning course in planning and writing research proposals for the M.D. thesis | 4 |
5 | Principles in planning and writing a research proposal | 6 | Personal meeting with the M.D. students to critically review their proposal for an M.D. thesis | 30 min |
6 | Clerkship in public health and epidemiology | 36 | Clerkship in public health and epidemiology | 36 |
Total Hours | 185 | Total Hours | 230.5 |