Putting it all together: building a four-year curriculum

A four-year curriculum in preventive medicine would require planning, but all the components are already available. This article outlines a four-part plan: develop the desired objectives or competencies; present the basics in years one and two of the curriculum; in years three and four make health promotion/disease prevention (HPDP) and the population perspective relevant to the practice of medicine; and, finally, develop a mechanism to track the curriculum and then improve it. Core competencies have already been developed, through joint activities of the Association of Teachers of Preventive Medicine (ATPM) and the Bureau of the Health Professions of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), and articles about teaching preventive medicine in multiple disciplines throughout the curriculum are published elsewhere in this supplement. Schools across the United States and Canada have innovative programs in place that can serve as models, and there are feasible approaches to monitoring the programs.