Public Health

• Topics relating to emerging epidemics, chronic disease epidemiology, global health, and social determinants of health are highly relevant to physicians and medical students.
• Public health education is increasingly recognized as an important component of medical education, and integrated public health curriculums have been successfully implemented.
• The Mailman School of Public Health is a premier teaching and research site, with a broad array of strengths in various public health realms. Located on the same campus as the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons (VP&S), the school provides an invaluable resource for VP&S students.

The public health thread provides VP&S students with the framework to identify public health-related content throughout their preclinical curriculum and incorporate the principles, methods, and overall perspective of public health disciplines during their Major Clinical Year. Students learn how public health disciplines relating to the context of care can inform clinical practice, medical decision-making, and research as well as how to include public health into their training and professional development. The thread's themes, topics, and locations within the MD curriculum are listed below, as well as the curriculum phases: Fundamentals (FND), Major Clinical Year (MCY), or Differentiation and Integration (D&I).