Medical Education

In Fall 2006, the School of Medicine implemented a new curriculum for Year 1 medical students, part of a phased process to transform the four year curriculum by better integrating clinical, scientific, and social components of medicine. Drs. Won Choi and Janet Thomas represented the Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health in planning this curricular reform. Dr. Choi also serves on the Education Council, the faculty body that oversees the entire 4-year medical school curriculum.

The most notable change to the Year 1-2 curriculum was the development of systems-based blocks. Course topics in Clinical Epidemiology and Prevention and Health Promotion and Disease Prevention were integrated into these blocks with the bulk of the information presented in the Foundations Block. In addition, Preventive Medicine faculty directed several small group sessions. Details of faculty contributions in the medical school curriculum are described below:

Clinical Epidemiology and Prevention (CEP)

Clinical Epidemiology and Prevention provides an introduction to the interrelationships between epidemiology, biostatistics, preventive medicine and public health, as well as the relevance of these fields to clinical practice, research, and public health policy. This course was held for second year medical students for the last time in Fall 2006, as the content will now be integrated into the Year 1 Foundations block.

Course Director:

• Won Choi, PhD, MPH

Foundations Block – Year 1 Curriculum

Dr. Choi directed eight hours of lecture in the Foundations Block devoted to Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Topics covered included those addressed in the former course, Clinical Epidemiology and Prevention, including study design, risk and treatment assessment, screening tests, and critical assessment of data.

Course Director:

• Won Choi, PhD, MPH

Determinants of Health

Twelve hours of the Foundations block of the Year 1 Curriculum were devoted to addressing determinants of health. Preventive Medicine faculty members directed the sessions on Socioeconomic Environment and Health Disparities, Behavioral and Psychological Influences on Health and Disease, and Access to Quality Health Care. This integration of topics into the foundations curriculum replaced the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention course previously directed by Kimberly Engelman, PhD, Janet Thomas, PhD, and Andrea Charbonneau Ely, MD.

Preventive Medicine and Public Health Faculty hosted two small group learning sessions in the Year 1 curriculum. In the Foundations block small groups, consisting of 10 medical students each, faculty and students discussed Critical Evaluation of Clinical Trials. In the Genetics and Neoplasia block, groups worked on Cancer Screening and Prevention.

Course Directors:

• Christine Daley, PhD, MA, SM
• Nikki Nollen, PhD
• Theresa Shireman, PhD, RPh

Health of the Public – Year 4 Curriculum

Health of the Public (HOP) is a required fourth-year medical school clerkship offered three times in the academic year: October, February and April. The course is offered on both the Kansas City campus and on the Wichita campus. During the month-long clerkship students participate in interactive team-based learning sessions, attend seminars, and work in teams on a population-based health care project called their “capstone project.” The framework for the HOP capstone project student experience is based in practice-based learning and improvement (PBLI) in the clinical setting. Students define a population, discuss the needs of that population, describe an intervention to address one or more of the population's needs, evaluate the appropriateness of that intervention, and address alternative methods of addressing those needs. During the 2005-2006 academic year, 112 students were enrolled in the course on the Kansas City campus. Preventive Medicine faculty mentored student capstone projects related to colon cancer screening, diabetes management, childhood obesity, smoking cessation, mammography, and Medicare.

Course Directors:

• Edward Ellerbeck, MD, MPH
• Kimber Richter, PhD, MPH

Course Coordinator:

• Leslie Sullivan, MS

Project Members:

• Lisa Sanderson Cox, PhD
• Nikki Nollen, PhD
• Ana Paula Cupertino, PhD
• Kimberly Engelman, PhD
• Babalola Faseru, MD, MPH
• Theresa Shireman, PhD, RPh