profession
Most medical schools give short shrift to health policy
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted March 21, 2011
Despite the ways in which health system reform will affect their careers, medical students receive only 14 hours of health policy education over four years, according to a survey of 93 medical school deans published in the March 10 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine (link).
About a quarter of schools have courses dedicated to health care policy, but most cover the topic as part of classes that are broader in scope. Only 30% of deans report having a health policy department, though more than half said that plans are under way to establish such departments or institutes. The study's authors, students at Harvard Medical School in Boston, took a mandatory, 40-hour course on health policy. They write that "health policy literacy should no longer be considered an ancillary skill, but rather a core competency of a 21st-century physician."
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2011/03/21/prbf0321.htm.
