Summer Assistantship

Course Directors: Peter Cronholm, MD MSCE (peter.cronholm@uphs.upenn.edu) and Ian Bennett, MD PhD (ian.bennett@uphs.upenn.edu)

Overview: The Community Medicine Summer Assistantship (CMSA) is a two-month community oriented learning opportunity for medical students who have completed their first year of training.  The CMSA will be linked to the Sayre School Clinic, a Health Resources and Services Administration-funded community medical healthcare site developed in and coordinated with the Sayre School of West Philadelphia.  The CMSA is a learning opportunity that will involve a structured educational program in community medicine as well as the development and implementation of student's individual community medicine project.  The Sayre School healthcare site is a newly funded initiative which provides a unique opportunity to learn about community partnerships for health and directly affect the initial development of a novel school-based healthcare site.  Weekly lectures in the development and execution of community medicine will be provided by the course directors and invited lecturers.  Student-directed community medicine projects will be developed by CMSA participants with support of the course directors and in conjunction with the Sayre community advisory board.  A final presentation and paper reporting the product of these efforts are to be presented to CMSA course directors and the Sayre community advisory board for successful completion of the CMSA.  Participants will be expected to dedicate full-time to this effort for the duration of the summer recess with allowance for vacation time to be worked out on an individual basis.  Sessions will be on Wednesday afternoons from 3:30-5:30 in the Gates conference room.

Note: Prior to implementation of any research projects, all students must complete the University of Pennsylvania Patient Oriented Research (http://www.med.upenn.edu/ohrtrain/POR/); submit a summary of the evidence base justifying the specific aims of your project; and obtain approval of the proposed project from the University of Pennsylvania Institutional Review Board (http://www.upenn.edu/regulatoryaffairs/IRB.html).

See Medical Student Education for a description of the seminar content