Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #112169

Amy F. Lee, MD, MPH¹, J. Michael Moser, MD, MPH², Sue Phillips³, and Michael Smylie, MA, RS³. (1) Consortium of Eastern Ohio Master of Public Health, 4209 State Route 44, PO Box 95, Rootstown, OH 44272, 330-325-6164, afl@neoucom.edu, (2) Director, Akron Department of Health, 177 S. Broadway, Akron, OH 44308, (3) Administration, Akron Health Department, 177 S. Broadway, Akron, OH 44308

Health departments have been used to various degrees by academic programs to provide practice placement opportunities for students. The Akron Health Department, a municipal health department that serves a community of more than 200,000, is a frequently used location for students from 23 area nursing, nutrition, medicine, and counseling programs. The Akron Health Department is also an academic health department with a formal affiliation with the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine. Until now, department personnel had limited capacity to plan in advance for the students for whom they served as preceptor during each year. Orientation to the health department and public health was inconsistent. Student evaluation of their experiences occurred sporadically. No centralized system existed to track where or when a particular student rotated through the health department or which academic programs were sending students. In a collaboration involving Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine faculty and health department personnel, a new student tracking system was developed. The result was an effective process to orient and track students, develop reports, and evaluate student achievement of defined objectives. Students will now receive a standard core of content information when they rotate through the Akron Health Department. In addition, data from the tracking system will be used to report student numbers and demographics to the sponsoring academic programs, health department preceptors, and to relevant administrative groups.

Learning Objectives:

• At the end of this session, participants will be able to develop a plan to track students within their agency.

Keywords: Public Health Education, Public Health Agency Roles

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.