College within the college (CwiC) – population health in medical education

The development of programmatic tracks providing students with academic opportunities outside of the traditional medical curriculum represents a national trend in medical education. Enhancing medical student education with public health knowledge, skills and attitudes has been recommended by many organizations. With HRSA Interdisciplinary and Interprofessional Joint Graduate Degree five-year funding, the Department of Family and Community Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University created an Inter-professional Primary Care Dual Degree Program (IPCDDP), building on Jefferson Medical College's College within the College (CwiC) Scholarly Concentration Program in Population Health. The mission of the IPCDDP is to provide training in primary care and population health in order to prepare primary care leaders to improve the health of vulnerable and underserved populations. CwiC – PH is a four year longitudinal area of concentration. Key components include: Year 1 enhanced population health components of Introduction to Clinical Medicine, community immersions, twice monthly seminars Summer – population health related programs locally and globally Year 2 case studies in Fundamentals of Clinical Medicine, twice monthly seminars' applying social and behavioral foundations of Public Health Year 3 enhanced clerkship experiences Year 4 community-based electives and completion of a Capstone Project, Three cohorts (totaling 113 students) have entered the program (17% of medical school classes). Benefits to students include a certificate upon program completion, recognition in Dean's letters, and 15 credits applied to the Jefferson MPH program. A description of the CwiC – PH program will be presented along with characteristics of enrolled students, implementation, evaluation, and sustainability plans.