MD ID 6650 - Applied Community Health and Leadership in Tribal, Rural, and Underserved (TRU) Settings

Physicians in tribal, rural, and underserved (TRU) communities depend on a diverse skill set that goes well beyond clinical care. In resource-limited communities, physicians are often called upon to lead efforts related to community health assessments and improvement, clinical care quality assurance and improvement, public health promotion and education, monitoring and evaluation of health programs, and local non-profit or voluntary organizational missions. Through a mixture of synchronous and asynchronous course work through online modules and didactic sessions, and experiential learning opportunities with community health workers (CHWs), students who complete this course will gain skills in community and organizational leadership, cultural humility, developing and improving health interventions and programs and planning a capstone community-oriented health improvement (COHI) project that may be implemented during the MS4 year. This is the third course for MS2 students completing the TRUE Certificate (MDID 6550/6555 are the first 2 courses in the series). However, this course has no prerequisite requirements and can be completed by any medical student who desires to explore community health and leadership in TRU settings. Students taking this course will have the unique opportunity to develop a longitudinal relationship with a primary care clinical mentor. Students (OPTIONAL Opt-in opportunity for 0.5 credit) will be paired with a primary care physician (Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, OB-Gyn, or Pediatrics, depending on interest and mentor availability), allowing for a rich clinical mentor-mentee relationship to develop over the course of the semester. Students will spend a minimum of 4 clinical sessions during the semester, though, depending on time and mentor availability, more sessions can be scheduled.