MD ID 6640 - Health Disparities and Public Health

This course focuses on the impact of health disparities on public health. Disparities related to all facets of life can affect health status and health behaviors. Students will learn to identify connections between individual- and community-level health disparities and community health. This course is being offered through the Division of Public Health and provides a foundational education experience in a topic that is germane to all health care profession students. It is being offered as an elective to all medical students (MS 1-4) but is a requirement for those medical students completing the TRUE Certificate, and meant to be completed during MS2. This course addresses the often spoken of yet insufficiently addressed area of health disparities, a broad field that touches almost every American across their life span. As the present course concentrates on the provision of a comprehensive overview, interested students will be able to continue to identify the underpinnings of inequity in the population of their choice, when a need for focus arises in their academic endeavors. Several key philosophies about health, and its fundamental place in achieving human potential, guide this course: • Health can only be fully understood in an ecologic context when biological psychological, social, cultural, economic, political, and social perspectives are integrated • Disparities give us important snapshots that can shape needed modification and leadership gaps as they influence all three functions of public health: assessment, policy development, and assurance of health services. • Medical students interested in careers in TRU medicine and in health promotion and disease prevention within these communities must make a commitment to address health disparities in their day-to-day practice of medicine. Steps to be taken will be addressed in the class, but a strong will to highlight and face an overburden of need will be required. Medical 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.