Community-Oriented Primary Care: Preparing Physicians for the Future in the United States

Abstract

As the health care system continues to evolve, there will be a shift in the care that physicians are asked to provide: from high-tech to patient-centered, from treatment-focused to prevention-focused. To improve the health of communities, health providers need to apply skills beyond those contained in the traditional biomedical model and must strive to encompass the community-based public health model.Physicians must function effectively within a multidisciplinary team in order to provide optimal health care in a setting of complex needs which far exceed the capacity of any one health discipline to address adequately. Students need first hand experience working with population issues in all learning settings -the hospital, the clinic and the community -to stimulate their interest in a population perspective. The medical education community needs to search for innovative, creative approaches to help the students develop the knowledge skills, and attitudes to practice.Community-oriented primary care (COPC) addresses the need to train practitioners in primary care practice that is community-responsive and that includes a public health perspective. It helps bridge the gap between academic medicine and the community it is designed to serve while fostering linkages among providers and community groups. It provides the structure for the various members of a public health team, often isolated from one another within their own institutions, to share ideas that focus on the need for integrity and simplicity in a community-3) * 교신저자: 이윤환, 아주대학교 의과대학 예방의학교실 지역사회중심의 일차의료(Community-Oriented Primary Care): 미국의 미래지향적인 의학교육 -330 -responsive health care system. But perhaps most importantly, it restores the social contract between medicine and society.

Premedical students' experiences in community-oriented primary care

“…의예과 학생들의 지역사회의학 교육의 향후 발전 방향은 지역사회의 보건 문제 및 건강요구는 항상 변화하고 우선순위가 달라질 수 있으므로, 지역사회의 요구에 반응하여 지역사회의학 교육 내용도 매년 달라질 수 있다는 점이다[ 13 ]. 이러한 지역사회의학 교육 기회를 통하여 의과대학과 지역사회기관들 간의 협력자 관계가 증진될 수 있을 것이며, 결과적으로 지역사회 보건 문제 해결 및 지역사회 건강증진 실천을 위한 상승효과가 나타날 수 있을 것이다[ 4 , 13 , 20 ].…”

Comparison of Medical Students' Satisfaction with Family Medicine Clerkships between University Hospitals and Community Hospitals or Clinics

“…Furthermore, it can teach medical students to adopt a community-responsive attitude and a public health perspective, and to understand chronic disease management, patient-centeredness, and healthcare systems 23)…”