OBJECTIVES AND STRATEGIES
1) Collaborating with other departments in the development of physicians equipped with the knowledge, skills and attitudes that will enable them to cope with the health problems of Saudi Arabia. While ensuring that these physicians will attain a standard acceptable internationally, the department puts special emphasis on the preparation of Saudi physicians that anticipates the contemporary and future needs of the kingdom.
2) Orienting future physicians to become preoccupied with the solution of Saudi Arabia’s community health problems. Community Medicine and Epidemiology are sciences that equip the learner with the techniques and abilities to assess the volume of these problems, to determine their priorities and to reach realistic plans for their solution. Family Medicine and Family practice encompass this approach and build on the bases described in providing solutions.
3) Encouraging the integration of curative and prevention medicine and implementing the belief in the wholeness of “Medicine”. The suggested curriculum takes every chance to integrate curative and preventive medicine in designed course formats (see courses COMM-311 and 421). However, integration is enhanced through integration of people as well as through integration of courses. This is the rationale of the course (COMM-304) in which supervisors from the department and another clinical department cooperates to supervise the student in writing a paper on a health-related problem in Saudi Arabia.
4) Focusing on learner’s needs to help them become independent continuous learners. The curriculum is designed to achieve specified learner’s objectives. The number of lectures is reduced in favor of active group learning in seminars and group discussions. Education is based on competence development and much reliance is put on problem solving. Learning resources in the community are sued. The students carry out community diagnosis, identify health problems and plan realistic solutions for them.
5) The development of the family and community oriented physician. Through interest in patients, the physician must develop interests in the social and environmental factors that determine disease and health and in the participating, interests in changing these conditions. The students are put in situations that lead them to discover for themselves the background of disease. Community orientation of staff members of other departments is also valuable for students to find proper" role models” among the faculty.
6) Integration of medical education with health services in the community.
7) Provision of educational experiences that enable students to become trained in Family and Community Medicine practice. This requires the development of knowledge, attitudes and skills necessary for the health care of communities and vulnerable population groups, emphasizing care of rural, and urban and peripheral urban communities.
8) Preparing the graduate to work as a leader of a multi-professional health team. For this purpose educational experience will be provided in settings where teams of health workers are involved in health care.
9) Developing in the graduate the interest in research especially in areas relevant to Saudi Arabia needs. Training in epidemiological methods and biostatistics will equip the student with the skills needed for proper research design and planning.
10) Participation in programs of continuous medical education for physician and other health personnel involved in health services.
11) Orienting the graduates to discover for themselves the necessity of changing habits, life styles and patterns of behavior of patients, families and communities. This is a requirement if the physician is to succeed in treating or preventing both the endemic diseases from which the country still suffers, and the chronic diseases—the new epidemics of this age. Students will be trained with the skills needed to influence individual and family behavior towards a healthier mode of life, and to guide and train all the members of the health team to fill the role of health educators. They should also be able to communicate with communities and to solicit their participation in health services and primary care.
12) Orienting the graduates to look at health care as one component of community development. Further, to appreciate the need and to acquire the ability work together with other sectors involved in this development.
13) The evaluation of the learning experiences in Family and Community Medicine should be a integral part of the experience. This evaluation includes
a. Performance of the student
b. Assessment whether the learning experiences are achieving the goals intended and
c. Definition of the problems encountered.
14) Education, services and research should be relevant to community needs.
15) Students will be involved in curriculum design and should have an input in evolving additional objectives for the course.
LEARNER’S OBJECTIVES:
List of tasks that training in Family and Community Medicine should make graduates able to do:
1) Plan realistic solution to the health problems in the community, taking into consideration the prevailing conditions and the available resources, and differentiation between the ideal goals and the practical attainable objectives.
2) Plan and carry out surveys in population, (using the proper sampling methods) to assess the volume of the problem of disease in the community and the pattern of its distribution.
3) Appreciate the great importance of early detection of disease or even the precursors of disease and accomplish this detection by screening of populations and periodic medical examination of community groups.
4) Organize careful surveillance to find out and register cases of important diseases that need continuous follow-up and measures of control and treatment.
5) Provide health care programs to vulnerable groups e.g. child welfare, maternal welfare, etc.
6) Coordinate, supervise and lead the activities of other community health workers in the health care team and provide them with relevant training.
7) Influence the change in life style and patterns of behavior of individual, families and communities into healthier modes of life, and to train, guide and lead the members of the health team to fill the role of health educators.
8) Collect and transmit pertinent information about health (health care need, demand for service, distribution and seriousness of disease and the effectiveness of existing services) in order to facilitate the monitoring of the health status.
9) Provide primary care to the community and population groups.
10) Carry out epidemiological studies in the community to measure the frequency of disease and study its association and correlation with determining factors.
11) Understand the limitations of curative institutions and clinics in reducing the volume of disease in the community and realize that this reduction, in many cases, can be more readily and fully achieved by comprehensive mass campaigns. The student should be able to organize, participate in and evaluate community mass programs.
12) Communicate with the community and solicit its participation in community health services and in choosing community leaders to help in brining services to the people and in getting the cooperation of the community.
13) Calculate, search for, and use vital statistics intelligently to assess the status of health and to monitor the success of health programs and activities.
14) Plan and carry out simple research relevant to community health needs.
15) Regularly improve the level of competence through continuous learning and self-assessment.
16) Understand the roles of primary, secondary and territory health care providers and how the various disciplines interact or singly act in providing these activities.
17) Understand and appreciate the roles of location, skills and facilities in primary, secondary and tertiary health care.
18) Describe how a patient encounter must always consider and include the aspects of
a. health-risk appraisal and prevention
b. curative and maintenance care
c. rehabilitation and
d. Education—to the patient, family and environment.
19) Clearly understand that the Kingdom’s responsibilities in providing health care for its citizens ultimately translates into properly trained and motivated physicians and other health team members conscientiously performing their roles.