Integrating population health into a general surgical residency curriculum

The once disparate fields of public health and medicine are slowly converging and reintegrating. Public health principles of community interventions and partnerships to effect better population health are included in the curricula of more medical schools. For graduate medical education, the specialties of internal medicine, family medicine, and preventive medicine are intuitively obvious population health partners, whereas surgeons have been relatively silent in this area. Despite the fact that many common surgical diseases are directly attributable to preventable causes, including cancer, trauma, and obesity, surgical residents receive little formal population health education. However, surgeons have always been and are increasingly active within the public health sphere. Examples of surgical population health initiatives include trauma systems development and improvement, research on disparities, and global health initiatives, including disaster relief. This article describes a single institution experience utilizing modest curriculum changes, increased global health opportunities, and direct service learning to help integrate population health principles into a general surgical residency program.