Jefferson Medical College Receives Grant to Support "College Within a College"
The
Department of Family and Community Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University has received a five-year $1.25 million grant from the Health Research Service Administration (HRSA) to plan, implement and evaluate the Jefferson Inter-professional Primary Care Dual Degree program (IPCDDP). The IPCDDP addresses the critical need to redesign the nation’s primary care system to meet the mandates of the Institute of Medicine to provide care that is safe, effective, efficient and timely and is delivered by patient-centered inter-disciplinary teams of health professionals.
“The HRSA grant will enable us to combine outstanding family medicine training at Jefferson Medical College with the innovative Jefferson School of Population Health and its unique new Masters of Science in Chronic Care Management and Masters in Public Health to create a new program which will address a growing national priority,” said James Plumb, M.D., professor, Department of Family and Community Medicine at Jefferson and director of the IPCDDP.
The program builds on the foundation of Jefferson Medical College’s “College within a College” (CwiC) program. This new co-curricula, to be completed during the four-years of medical school, offers unique opportunities to expand on important subjects that are now only a small part of traditional medical programs.
The CwiC Scholarly Concentrations Program at Jefferson offers two tracks – Population Health, focusing on Public and Global Health and Community Medicine, and partially funded by the HRSA grant and Clinical-Translational Research, which will focus on the creation of new scientific knowledge.
“Additional opportunities for medical students to do scholarly work during medical school is an emerging national trend,” said Susan Rattner, M.D., professor of Medicine and vice dean Academic Affairs at Jefferson Medical College. “We are very proud to be among such schools as Brown, Duke, Yale and Stanford that support this type of experience for their medical students. Students often come to Jefferson with interests and experience in public health, global health and clinical research. This program enables students to nurture these interests, rather than “sideline” them as they pursue their MD training.”
Both the Population Health and Clinical-Translational Research co-curricula are designed with emphasis on long-term mentoring relationships, interactive group seminars and courses, projects and assignments throughout years one through four of medical school and completion of a scholarly product. Students will work on courses linked to their track during the summer between the first and second years and completion of a “scholarly product” is required by graduation. This project may take one of many forms such as peer-reviewed publication, a conference presentation, policy analysis, or a curriculum module for health professionals or the community. Each student will be strongly encouraged to publish their scholarly product or present it at an academic conference.
The other schools receiving the grants are Nova Southeastern University and the University of Miami.
Media Only Contact:
Richard Cushman
Thomas Jefferson University Hospital
Phone: (215) 955-6300
Published: 12/10/2010