Memorial Family Medicine Health Policy Curriculum

In response to the rapid pace of change in the health care delivery market and to growing interest among our residents, Memorial Family Medicine has offered its Health Policy curriculum since 2008. Designed to complement the longitudinal Practice Management curriculum, the Health Policy curriculum exposes our residents to a range of issues facing family physicians and their patients within an increasingly complex delivery system.

The curriculum accomplishes this via two longitudinal programs. The first is a dedicated Health Policy lecture series that is scheduled every other month. Topics have included: the history of health care reform, the organization of health care, social determinants of health, governmental advocacy, measuring quality, reducing health care disparities, and the role of organized medicine. Lectures are given by Dr. Jay W. Lee, Director of Health Policy, and other expert guest speakers from within MemorialCare as well as from outside local organizations. The second program is a quarterly Health Policy journal club. The purpose of this journal club is to review the current health policy literature to study topics in greater depth. The format of the hour-long journal club is two articles presented by one resident each with a facilitated discussion.

Future directions include development of a Health Policy elective. Residents with strong interest and/or leadership potential will have an opportunity to focus on developing their health policy skills over a 2- or 4-week elective rotation.

If you have a particular interest in this aspect of the program, please contact Dr. Lee directly via email: eejaywon@gmail.com or via Twitter: @familydocwonk.