MD/MPH Rotation Requirement

The MD/MPH rotation is based in New Orleans and is required for all MD/MPH combined degree students.

Click a link below for more information about the MD/MPH rotation:
Practicum Requirements
Registration
Course Faculty and Staff
Course Description
Objectives
Educational Format
Student Responsibilities
Grading
Representative Schedule
Examples of Student Projects
Process to Request an Alternate MD/MPH Rotation Practice Site

Practicum Requirements
The MD/MPH rotation fulfills, in part, the SPHTM practicum requirement for MD/MPH students.  To earn credit for the practicum and to graduate with the MPH, MD/MPH students must submit all required, signed practicum forms.  Practicum forms for MD/MPH students are available on MyTulane's "MD/MPH Program" organization link, under the general "Campus Life" tab.  Once inside the "MD/MPH Program" site, select the "MD/MPH rotation" tab, and then the "Administrative Documents" folder.

MD/MPH students must submit originals of all signed practicum forms to their SPHTM advisor on the final day of the rotation.  MD/MPH students must submit a photocopy of the signed practicum forms to the MD/MPH Program Office according to the following schedule:

• "Practicum Form B: Placement Agreement": due on the first day of the rotation.  The MD/MPH Program Office will supply you with the placement agreement specific to your site.
• "Practicum Form A: Getting Started": due on Monday of the second week of the rotation.
• "Practicum Form C: Practicum Progress Report": due on Monday of the third week of the rotation.
• "Practicum Form D: Supervisor's Evaluation of Student Performance": due on Friday of the final week of the rotation.
• "Practicum Form E: Practicum Completion Form": due on Friday of the final week of the rotation.

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Registration
Students register for the MD/MPH rotation at the same time they register for other core rotations: students register for rotations in the School of Medicine (SOM) Student Affairs Office.  Students’ rotation registration times are assigned by lottery number.  Check with SOM’s Student Affairs Office for specific registration dates.

Enrollment in the MD/MPH Rotation is limited to a maximum of 6 students per block. The one-month rotation is generally offered during the following blocks:

• September (Block 3)
• October (Block 4)
• November (Block 5)
• February (Block 8)
• March (Block 9)
• April (Block 10)

Block offerings are subject to change and are subject to cancellation. Please consult the MD/MPH Program Office or the School of Medicine’s Office of Student Affairs for the most current offerings.
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Course Faculty and Staff
Faculty Course Director:
Latha Rajan, MD, MPH&TM
lrajan@tulane.edu

Project Assistant
Jessica Adams
jladams@tulane.edu

Course Description
The clerkship offers opportunities for clinical experience in public clinics serving medically underserved and other populations, seminar sessions, case studies, and community health and clinical research projects.

The didactic sessions relate to appropriate approaches to conducting community projects; community resources available to serve the patient; health system issues relating to health care; case-based modules; and applied preventive medicine concepts.

The community project will be selected after discussion with the faculty supervisor of the rotation site.

Although the MPH culminating experience and the MD/MPH rotation (i.e., practicum) are separate and distinct requirements, it may be possible to build on the rotation project and expand it to meet requirements for the MPH culminating experience if arranged by the student and approved by the student’s public health advisor.  Students will work with faculty during the course to develop project requirements.
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Objectives

• To understand appropriate design of and conduct a population-based project in a community or other setting (e.g., clinical, managerial, public health)
• To understand the difference between clinical and public health practice versus clinical or public heatlh research
• To understand human subjects' protection in clinical research
• To participate in the care and management of both the disease state and social issues of the patients and populations in underserved and other communities
• To identify and utilize resources (both voluntary and official, at various levels) available in the community to enhance the care and management of patients and populations
• To understand the linkages between preventive and public health principles and their applications in clinical practice
• To identify and explore career opportunities that use both medical and public health degrees
• To idenfity notifiable diseases
• To describe key components of public health outbreak investigations

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Educational Format

• Community-based primary care and public health practice settings
• Community health project or research related to the site to which the student is assigned
• Didactic sessions designed to enhance student knowledge and awareness of key population concepts and resources

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Student Responsibilities

• Perform literature search and article review on selected project, and draft executive summary of findings
• Obtain public health statistics from relevant sources (i.e., literature, Office of Public Health)
• Attend and participate in weekly clinics/community project
• Collect project-relevant data
• Attend and participate in seminar and case presentation sessions
• Perform simple data entry and analyze statistics on data collected
• Meet regularly with project staff and supervisors and provide feedback regarding project/rotation
• Meet, identify, and work with any relevant community personnel who may have programs that impact the resources used by the patient population
• Generate a summary report of project findings that includes background, methods, results, discussion, and public health implications
• Provide an oral presentation on project findings

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Grading
The course director will grade students according to the following percentages and criteria:

20% lecture attendance
Students must attend all lectures unless they receive advance approval from the course director and make arrangements to make up the missed lecture material.  Students must also complete any assigned didactic modules.  Students who are arranging interviews during the block may miss no more than three days.  Other absences because of illness or personal emergencies will be allowed by the course director; however, the total absences may not exceed five days.  Students will be required to make up missed lectures.

Note:  University rules do not allow students to be enrolled in two courses at the same time; therefore, students are not excused from rotation responsibilities for public health classes.

20% final project presentation
At the end of the block, students will deliver to their peers and the faculty director an oral presentation based on their written project.  The presentation will consist of a PowerPoint presentation (including handouts of PowerPoint slides) that follows the outline of the written report (see below).  The course director will grade the project according to the quality of the content, the student’s creativity and resourcefulness in designing and implementing the project, and the quality of the presentation (including visual aids and handouts.  Also see the “Oral Presentation Evaluation Form” for evaluation criteria.

30% written project report
At the time of the project presentation (see above), students must submit the written report on which their presentation is based.  The report must adhere to the “Outline for the SPHTM Practicum Report,” posted on MyTulane, in the “MDMPH Program” organization, under the “MD/MPH rotation” tab, in the “Administrative Documents” folder.

Beginning with the September 2007 block, the course will be graded on a pass-fail basis.  Students must earn 85% or better to earn a "pass."

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Representative Schedule
The following schedule is only representative and may change from block to block as faculty director, lecturer, and holiday schedules dictate.  You will receive a detailed schedule for your orientation and for the duration of your block shortly before the block begins.

Week One
Days 1-2:  Lectures, site selection; complete human subjects' projection module
Days 3-5:  Full-time participation at assigned site, discuss site needs and appropriate project topics with site supervisor

Week Two
Day 1:  Meet with rotation faculty director and peers to review possible projects
Days 2-5: Full-time participation at site on selected project

Week Three
Day 1: Interim project report (oral and written) to rotation faculty director and peers; lecture on PowerPoint presentation skills and manuscript preparation
Days 2-5: Full-time participation at site on selected project

Week Four
Days 1-3: Full-time participation at site; solicit supervisor evaluation to submit on Day 4 or 5
Days 4-5: Lectures; final PowerPoint project presentation; final typewritten project report; evaluation of sites and rotation

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Examples of Student Projects
The following is a sample of some of the most recent MD/MPH student projects, arranged by the site where the project was completed.  Current MD/MPH students can review a brief description of these and other projects on the MyTulane's MD/MPH Program site.

Common Ground Health Clinic
"Continuous Quality Improvement Project:  Assessment and Improvement of Patient Health Education Materials for Chronic Diseases at an Urban Clinic"
"Impact of Medication Costs on Health Indicators and Adherence in New Orleans"

Daughters of Charity 
"Cervical Cancer Screening in a Community Health Clinic"
"The Prevalence of Depression in a Community Health Setting One Year, Post-Katrina"
"Patient Flow Analysis with the DOC Clinic"

EXCELth Family Health Center 
"EXCELth Post-Katrina Survey: Determining the Demographics, Health Needs, and Factors Associated with Increased Mental Health Problems of Patients Receiving Care at EXCELth Clinic"

Catholic Charities (at New Orleans Adolescent Hospital)
"Mental Health Care Delivery Problems in New Orleans Post-Hurricane Katrina"
"A Systems Analysis of the Delivery of Mental Health Care in Post-Katrina New Orleans"

Ochsner Clinic 
"Adherence to Anti-Hypertensive Medications and Health Related Quality of Life in Hypertensive Population"
"Demographic Trends in Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Oral Tongue:  a descriptive study at Southern Regional Clinic"

Louisiana Office of Public Health: Administration
"Management of Type 2 Diabetes in a Free Clinic Setting"
"Recovering from the Medical Diaspora:  Rebuilding a Primary Care System after Katrina
The Healing of A Health Care System: A Timeline"

Louisiana Office of Public Health: Infectious Diseases
"State Antibiotic Resistance Websites Compared to Louisiana’s Antibiotic Sensitivity Program Website"
"Tracking the Trend of Rheumatic Fever in Louisiana"
"Retinopathy of Prematurity in Louisiana"
"Distribution of Urologic Disease in Louisiana"
"Salmonella in Louisiana"
"Impact of Hurricane Katrina on Vibrio Vulnificus Infections in Louisiana"

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Process to Request an Alternate MD/MPH Rotation Practice Site
Students who wish to complete their MD/MPH rotation at an international rotation site must select from the two sites (Malaysia and India) with which Dr. Latha Rajan collaborates.  For all information (including details about the sites, the process to request either Malaysia or India, available months, the timeline for requesting India or Malaysia, etc.), contact Dr. Latha Rajan ( lrajan@tulane.edu; 504.988.7970).

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