Group on Community Medicine

 

The Group on Community Medicine of the Society for Teachers of Family Medicine is committed to facilitating the training of Community Responsive Physicians. To that end we created and maintain this website. What we hope is that this site will serve as an adjunct to the conversations, online discussions, annual get-togethers that serve the recharge and vitalize those of us who instruct medical students and residents in the art of being a community responsive physician.

We expect this web based instructional tool to engage both experienced and junior faculty working with residents and medical students. We would like to see all persons involved with training learners in the art and science of community based practice to participate at some level. For the new faculty member, we offer you the collective wisdom of faculty who have been struggling with meeting a mandate for training with limited resources, who are motivated to change the health care delivery system, and/or who have likely been through the same experiences you are likely to face. For the faculty member who has been involved with community medicine training for a while, you will have the opportunity to hone your skills, reflect on your field of interest, and following feedback from learners and other interested parties will have the opportunity to renew their own curriculum. All will have the opportunity to interact with others of like interest, leading to “cross-pollination,” collaboration, and ultimately to improved training and better care for our communities.

This site contains references and information that those of us involved in training physicians to become community responsive practitioners have found useful.

Terminology

Community Medicine:

A style of practice encompassing the following with the intent of improving the health of the community however it is defined.

1. An emphasis on excellence in clinical care and utilization of community resources. This is defined as emphasizing prevention and chronic disease care as well as acute care, and use of evidence based medicine, and attention to quality. In addition, attention is paid to the non-physician aspect of health.
2. Use of applied epidemiology. The practitioner must make an effort to identify the populations served by his or her practice by using clinic and practice experience, information and data from the practice community and the extended practice, the geographic community or other specially defined communities.
3. Community diagnosis through the use of data. This might include primary data collection such as direct observation or performance of a needs assessment. It also might include the use of secondary data such as census, vital statistics, public health. For some it means collecting and analyzing practice data from such sources as billing, demographics, or sampling of the practice. For others it may mean partnering with larger entities

Community Responsive Clinician:

A practitioner who delivers care which is culturally competent, is able to utilize community health resources, is involved in the community and seeks to improve the health of the community using community medicine tools.

Community-Oriented Primary Care:

Use of a specific set of skills in an effort to improve the health of the community. These skills involve identification of a specific target community, through group process identification of a health problem of interest, designing and implementing an intervention targeting the problem, and assessing and evaluating the success of the program.

 

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