The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #45288

Eric Henley, MD, MPH¹, Karen Peters, DrPH², Vicki Weidenbacher-Hoper, MSW¹, and Michael Glasser, PhD¹. (1) Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Illinois College of Medicine at Rockford, 1601 Parkview Ave, Rockford, IL 61107, 815-395-5805, ehenley@uic.edu, (2) Illinois Prevention Research Center, University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, 850 W. Jackson (M/C 275), Chicago, IL 60607

Work continues toward finding 'common ground' for partnership formation between the disciplines of medicine and public health. Scholars have advanced a variety of suggestions for why and how these fields have and have not always been allies, including differences in training and education. This presentation describes a faculty development fellowship program in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Rockford (UIC-R) that aims to bridge this gap by combining an educational track with an applied research track that supports scholarly activity. The Fellows are asked to take four MPH graduate courses that are offered locally or on-line, attend a monthly seminar series and develop individual research projects with a community/public health focus through individual mentoring support. Over a two-year period, seven faculty members, including five physicians, joined the fellowship. They have developed projects that address medicine-public health issues such as African American knowledge of risk factors for coronary heart disease, quality of life for homeless adults and provision of family planning services by local health departments. For most of the fellows, this is their first experience conducting research. Lessons learned about obstacles to recruiting and retaining faculty participants and strategies for overcoming them will be presented.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the goals for a public health oriented medical school faculty development fellowship.
• Review the academic and research components of the fellowship.
• Assess the results and lessons learned over 2 years in implementing the fellowship within a family medicine department.

Keywords: Physicians, Public Health Education

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.