A public health certificate for all medical students: concepts and strategies

The goal of integrating a Public Health Certificate (PHC) into the medical school curriculum is meant to provide basic public health skills and knowledge to all future physicians, ultimately broadening the health workforce's capacity to address community health needs. The faculty at the University of New Mexico's (UNM) School of Medicine (SOM), in collaboration with multiple community stakeholders, created a PHC equivalent to 15 graduate level units. The PHC will be required of all medical students matriculating in 2010.

The authors, community leaders, university administrators, faculty, staff, and students met to address the many tasks required of such broad curricular and policy change. The tasks required piloting innovations in curriculum design and implementation, working within the bureaucratic structure, fostering collaboration, nurturing leadership skills, marketing the new ideas, and designing credible evaluation strategies.

We have engaged the stakeholders; surveyed our resources; produced and implemented ongoing evaluation; examined implementation strategies; developed, implemented and pilot tested the PHC courses; and engaged faculty from the Department of Family & Community Medicine in faculty development seminars.

Introduction of a PHC for all students is feasible with planning tools such as the Logic Model.