A first-year problem-based curriculum in health promotion and disease prevention

This paper describes Harvard Medical School's integration of a curriculum on health promotion and disease prevention into the first year of its New Pathway to General Medical Education. The goals of the curriculum were to develop in each student (1) the knowledge and skills necessary to evaluate critically the major issues in prevention and (2) an attitude that acknowledges the pertinence of prevention in virtually every clinical encounter. The case method was used for all teaching in the curriculum, as it is throughout the New Pathway. Students worked together in small groups, addressing the issues raised by each case under the direction of faculty preceptors. The component was taught by clinicians as part of a two-year course in which students learned clinical skills and addressed topics from the social sciences and medical humanities. In addition, issues in health promotion and disease prevention were integrated into the cases used to teach the other components of the New Pathway curriculum.