Strengthening the Public Health Workforce through Public Health in Medical Education: Teaching Population Health in Clinical Settings with Public Health Patient Conversations

Integrating public health into medical education is challenging, especially as students advance to clinical clerkships, and shift their focus to individual patients. We tested an innovative approach, linking public health information to clinical settings. Five public health audio-video modules (vignettes) were developed in areas of adult immunization, smoking cessation, HIV prevention, physical activity, and adolescent injuries. Each was designed to simulate a physician-patient conversation in an office setting, and consisted of an introductory slide with still-view bulleted public health information from the CDC, (also heard on a voiceover), that was followed by a video of a physician-patient conversation, and a second summary information slide. Vignettes were from 3.5 to 7 minutes long. The UVM College of Medicine Educational Tool (COMET), an integrated teaching and learning tool was used as a learning platform. Students could watch or listen to vignettes multiple times for a 7 day period, then completed a brief on-line test, containing 3 questions for each vignette, (2 from public health information and 1 from the conversation). 72 3rd year medical students completed the test. Mean number of times students viewed each vignette ranged from 2.89 to 3.07 (all medians = 2). Percent correct responses ranged from 66% to 100%. Overall, 89.6% of information based items were answered correctly along with 93.5% of conversation based items (Fisher's test p = .28, not significant). Students in clinical clerkships learned public health information using this vehicle. Further studies will focus on additional topics and testing in a subsequent class cohort.