Undergraduate public health education in UK medical schools - struggling to deliver

Medical Education
Stephen Gillam, Abhijit Bagade

Abstract

Recent policy initiatives in the United Kingdom (UK) have underlined the importance of public health education for health care professionals. We aimed to describe teaching inputs to medical undergraduate curricula, to identify perceived challenges in the delivery of public health teaching and strategies that may overcome them. We undertook a cross-sectional survey; questionnaires were sent electronically to 28 teaching leads in academic departments of public health in UK medical schools. These were followed-up by telephone interviews. We obtained a 75% response rate. We found a great deal of variability between schools in teaching methods, curricular content and resources used. In 76% of medical schools, public health and clinical teaching were integrated to some extent. The proportion of teaching delivered as lectures is decreasing and that of self-directed learning is increasing. A range of methods is used to assess students and in 33% of schools these assessments contributed to final Medical School marks. More than half the medical schools had difficulty finding teachers and staffing levels had deteriorated in 55% of schools. Many interviewees felt that their contributions were undervalued. Few were aware of the level of fun...Continue Reading

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Citations

Dec 5, 2009·Journal of Public Health·Stephen Gillam, Gillian Maudsley
Aug 27, 2009·Academic Medicine : Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges·Ingrid V TylerDavid L Mowat
May 25, 2013·Academic Medicine : Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges·Ji-Hyun JangMelissa Shahin
Jun 30, 2012·PloS One·Marie Krousel-WoodPaul K Whelton
Feb 19, 2008·Bulletin of the World Health Organization·F SimM McKee
Apr 7, 2010·Social Science & Medicine·Jennifer M Weller, Alistair J Woodward
Oct 27, 2009·Best Practice & Research. Clinical Rheumatology·Helen Foster, Yukiko Kimura
Nov 7, 2007·Public Health·Marc B M SoethoutGerrit van der Wal
Nov 23, 2006·Medical Education·Vladimir J SimunovićMatko Marusić
Oct 30, 2016·Journal of Public Health·Stephen GillamPuja Myles
Oct 6, 2007·Medical Teacher·Ann Wylie, Sam Thompson
Feb 22, 2018·Israel Journal of Health Policy Research·Rachel DanknerSiegal Sadetzki

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