ABSTRACT
The end of the twentieth century saw a flurry of revisions to traditional medical education.1 The drive to incorporate population health and medical informatics into the medical curriculum resulted in the redesign of the first-and second-year medicine course curriculum at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans (LSUHSC-NO) School of Medicine. The resulting program, Science and Practice of Medicine (SPM 100 and 200), is a two-year course which draws from population/community health initiatives outlined in Healthy People 20102 and includes active learning, computerassisted learning, clinical skills, simulation, and small group work in the course curriculum:
To be adequately prepared for the practice of population medicine, today’s physician should have a working knowledge of epidemiology, biostatistics, evidence-based medicine, personal wellness, information management, healthcare policy, and health law. These are the concepts physicians will use to critically evaluate the literature about the health of their patient population and interventions to promote their well being.3
