Shifting perceptions and challenging the profession's paradigms: reflections from an undergraduate week of population...

The perception that population health is a poor cousin of the clinically orientated medical specialties has occurred despite a growing acknowledgement of the importance of a population health approach to the provision of medical care in the 21st Century. This perception appears entrenched within academic and clinical institutions, and is inherited by undergraduate students as they move through their training. Competing philosophies within modern medical curricula, medical socialisation, and historical professional belief structures have all contributed to both a covert and an overt scepticism towards population based approaches as being 'soft' and largely irrelevant. In May 2007, the University of Auckland introduced a new initiative for Year 5 medical students, called 'Population Health Intensive'. This was a week aimed at increasing medical undergraduate student's exposure to population health perspectives and initiatives. It challenged students and academic staff alike to reflect on their perceptions of the role of population health in medical practice and raised questions about the relevance of current medical education in light of the changing face of health and healthcare delivery. In this paper we consider the drivers of change and argue that population health has an important and legitimate place in both undergraduate medical training and clinical practice, thus widening the professions' understanding of health and disease.