Education

PSP provides educational experiences throughout all four years of undergraduate education. These include didactics in the pre-clinical years (Y1 and Y2), and experiential cases and learning and specific electives in the clinical years (Y3 and Y4).

In addition to providing information and learning around the Health Systems Science (HSS) Curriculum domains as outlined by the American Medical Association, PSP curriculum aims to help students identify the clinical correlations between what was taught in pre-clinical years and what they practice in clinical spaces.

The core functional and foundational domains of Health Systems Science Curriculum as outlined by the American Medical Association are listed below with the didactics that cover each listed.

Population, Public and Social Determinants of Health 
Orientation to PSP (Y1), Introduction to PSP/SDOH (Y1), Introduction to Biostatistics (Y1), Study Design I and II (Y1), Understanding Data and Interpretation (Y1), Diagnostic and Screening Tests (Y1), PSP in the Real World (Y2), History of the Opioid Crisis,  Outbreak Investigation and Test Evaluation (Y2), Social and Structural Determinants of Health in Mental Illness (Y2), Understanding Our Biases (Y2), PSP Experience (Y2)

Healthcare Structure and Process 
Healthcare Delivery (Y1), PSP in the Real World (Y2), Rural Healthcare Delivery (Y2)

Health Systems Improvement  
Safety Culture & Quality Improvement (Y2), Physician Leadership & Systems-based Practice (Y2)

Healthcare Policy and Economics 
PSP in the Real World (Y2), The Chronic Care Policy (Y2), Clinical Informatics (Y2)

Value in Healthcare
Quality Improvement (Y2)

Clinical Informatics and Health Technology
Clinical Informatics (Y2)

Ethics and Legal  
Complex Ethical Issues (Y2)

Teaming  
Physician Leadership & Systems-based Practice (Y2)

Leadership 
Physician Leadership & Systems-based Practice (Y2)

Change Agency, Management and Advocacy
Social and Structural Determinants of Health in Mental Illness (Y2)

PSP in Practice, a specialty-specific curriculum developed by PSP and embedded in the eight core clerkship rotations (Y3), provides learning experiences that incorporate aspects of all the HSS domains. The HSS domains covered in each specialty are listed below:

Teaming
Emergency Medicine

Clinical Informatics and Health Technology
Family and Community Medicine

Value in Healthcare
Internal Medicine

Ethics and Legal
Neurology 

Population Public, and Social Determinants of Health (with focus on Women's Health and Maternal Health Disparities)
OBGyn 

Population Public, and Social Determinants of Health
Pediatrics

Population Public, and Social Determinants of Health (with focus on Stigma)
Psychiatry

Population Public, and Social Determinants of Health (with focus on Nutrition and Associated Surgical Outcomes)
Surgery

In addition, PSP Electives, available in the fourth year, provide additional concentrated learning and experiences. The domains and their corresponding electives are listed below:

Population, Public and Social Determinants of Health 
Cancer Health Disparities, Clinical Epidemiology, Emerging Trends in Public Health

Value in Healthcare 
Advancing Health Equity in Clinical Practice
 
Teaming 
Population Health Leadership, All Hazards Preparedness & Response

Leadership 
Population Health Leadership

Healthcare Structure and Process 
Advancing Health Equity in Clinical Practice

Health Systems Improvement 
All Hazards Preparedness and Response

Change Agency, Management & Advocacy 
Health Policy Government Relations

Healthcare Policy and Economics  
Health Policy Government Relations 

The MD/MPH program aims to graduate physicians who are prepared to become leaders in public and population health. Administration of this program is overseen by PSP Education and requires the recruitment of potential candidates, interviews, coordination of acceptance and enrollment, teaching required electives, and duties associated with ensuring students complete their six-week practicum.  It also entails collaboration with the faculty and program administration at the MPH program in Carbondale, and the Admissions office at SIU SOM.

The MD/MPH program is a five-year program beginning in Carbondale. Students accepted to the program spend their first year completing MPH coursework in Carbondale. Students start medical school the second year. The fifth year (MS4), the students take MPH specific electives and complete a practicum.

Each MD/MPH student is required to complete a total of 15 hours of electives (including the practicum) while on the Springfield campus during MS4. Each SIU School of Medicine elective is worth an equivalent number of credit hours for each week in length. Thus, a 1-week elective is worth 1 credit hour. The following electives are divided into “Required” and “Optional,” from which the student may choose to fulfill their 15 total hours.

Required course work
Optional course work*
List of Year 1 Resource Sessions
List of Year 2 Resource Sessions
List of Year 4 Electives

*Optional courses may change without notice. Contact Carol Coniglio with any questions about course availability. For additional information on our other academic programs, click here.

Map coming soon.

For graduate students (residents and fellows) PSP curriculum includes an annual experience at graduate medical education orientation, a Quality Improvement and Patient Safety seminar, and various didactics in conjunction with clinical departments.

Information coming soon