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This proposal is centered on COLLEGE X's tradition of offering an education that prepares students for full and meaningful lives in the contemporary world. A number of the proposed enhancements build on COLLEGE X's future goals, including increasing the number of "thought and action" learning projects, expanding student-faculty research opportunities, increasing the types of available internships, fostering collaboration with other colleges and universities, encouraging greater use of resources in the greater cosmopolitan area, and creating a new distinctive programs in graduate and professional studies.
A. Expand learning opportunities to include public health and integrative medicine.
- Specific Elements
- Add public health and complementary health modules
- Add public health and wellness internships
- Background
Knowledge of public health practices is a required in virtually all health-related positions. In these political times, this knowledge has also become an important subject for a well-rounded liberal arts education.
The addition of modules, seminars and courses such as those described above would not only deepen a student's preparedness for advanced studies in a health-related field, it would enhance the ability of those not successfully gaining entry to medical, dental or veterinary school to secure employment that is perhaps more meaningful to their interest in health, and give all students a greater understanding of population level health issues.
- Specific Element Details
- Medical/Health Research
This course would teach the basics elements of conducting health and medical research, including terms and definitions, required skills and training, basic principles, key public and private organizations, federal regulations, human subject ethics, and factors affecting the reliability, validity and generalization of a scientific study. Students would design a simple theoretical research study, identifying key steps and issues.
- Field Epidemiology (Disease Detectives)
This course would teach the principles, practices and resources required to investigate community health event clusters. Course work would cover key private and government public organizations, review relevant state and federal laws, and include the review of actual cases such as the legionella outbreak in Philadelphia, acute childhood leukemia in Ohio, and the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the U.S. Students would be introduced to key decision-making issues, such as how to decide if there is an actual cluster, the difference between before-and-after and cause-and-effect, the presence of confounding factors, and ability to find or identify additional cases.
- Health Interviews & Surveys
Students would be taught the techniques, laws and ethics of collecting health information. Focus would be on the use of in-person and telephone interviews, and the use of outlines and questionnaires. A variety of formats would be covered, including the standard medical history and physical, occupational and environmental health and risk surveys, and personal health risk assessments. National health surveys would also be discussed, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).
This course would be useful as a Spring or Summer semester course for those accepted to medical school, or part of the Post-Baccalaureate Program for premedical students. It may be possible to arrange for students to assist with the data collection portion of a research project conducted by researchers at COLLEGE X, the State or City/County Departments of Health, or other nearby academic institutions.
- Integrative Medicine
Students would be taught a brief history of the practice of medicine from a worldwide view, but focusing on health care delivery in the United States. The governing principles of a wide selection of practices would be explored, including mind-body medicine, acupuncture, massage, aromatherapy, nutriceuticals, energy work, and a variety of spirituality based practices from many different cultures. Discussions would include existing scientific evidence, cultural bias, the role of the placebo effect in patient testimonials, and local and national regulations governing these modalities.
- Independent Study
Students would design or conduct a wellness or public health research project, prepare a review of the literature on a specific public health, wellness or disease topic, or similar related project.
- Public Health and Wellness Internships
Through expanding the undergraduate curriculum to include public health, a new group of internships may be accessible to students. Regardless of chosen specialty, all health care providers (animal and human) can benefit from public health field experience.
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