December 8, 2006                                            

SIU Med School Receives National Grant to Study Rural Public Health

As part of a national effort to improve the teaching of medical students in the public health needs of rural Americans, Southern Illinois University School of Medicine has received two years of funding, totaling $100,000.  SIU is one of eleven U.S. medical schools being funded as Regional Medicine-Public Health Education Centers.  The funding is from the Association of American Medical Colleges and the Centers for Disease Control.

The focus of the grant is to develop a specific curriculum in public health, population health and prevention that can be used throughout all four-years of training for medical students.  The sites range from Harvard Medical School and University of Vermont College of Medicine in the northeast to the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University and Mercer University School of Medicine in the south and the University of New Mexico and Stanford University Schools of Medicine in the west.  SIU is the only Midwest school funded.

“This grant will help us give the areas of public health and prevention more attention and thereby better meet our mission to serve the rural downstate population,” said Dr. Sharon K. Hull, associate professor and interim chair of medical humanities and the principal investigator for the grant.  “SIU is like most U.S. medical schools in that we offer some training in public health but need to do more in the today’s changing health care environment.  With emerging infectious diseases and more man-made and natural disasters, we need to have a broader curriculum in this area.”

Hull is using an advisory committee and a steering committee that include officials from the Illinois Department of Public Health and county public health departments, schools of allied health and other health professionals.  The groups have held a planning retreat and monthly committee meetings.  A second advisory committee retreat is planned for the spring.

The goal for SIU’s project is to use the partnerships developed with various experts to create and implement a rural-focused curriculum in population health that crosses all four years of SIU’s curriculum.  Eventually, the curriculum will provide both classroom and field experience in public health for all SIU medical students.  The new curriculum also could become a model for other U.S. medical schools and a resource for other health professions schools in the region.  SIU can qualify for up to three more years of funding for the project.

Hull says SIU is well suited to this grant because the medical school has a long track record in developing integrated, small-group and experiential learning activities in its curriculum.  It also has always had a rural focus, given its downstate geographic location.

“The need for educating a strong public health medical team, including physicians who have had considerable training in population health, has been recognized by the Institute of Medicine,” explains Hull.  “With more than half of all deaths in the U.S. due to preventable lifestyle and behavioral problems combined with medical emergencies along with health-related experiences caused by recent natural disasters, it is clear that the role of public health professionals must be strengthened.”

Hull returned to SIU’s faculty in 2005 after completing a two-year primary care research fellowship, a preventive medicine residency and a public health master’s degree at the University of North Carolina.  She was named interim chair this year.  She first joined the medical school’s faculty in Carbondale (1996-2003).  Previously, she was on the SIUC student health staff (1993-96) and had a private practice in Marion (1990-92).  A 1987 graduate of SIU's medical school, Hull completed her family medicine residency at Union Hospital Family Practice Center in Terre Haute, Ind., (1990) and earned her bachelor's degree at the University of Evansville, Ind. (1983).  She is board certified in both family medicine and preventive medicine and a fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians.

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