Years 1-2: Medical School

Students interested in the MD/MPH dual degree program at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison have an opportunity to integrate public health education throughout the first two years of medical school through required courses, electives, student interest groups, the LOCUS program and summer research opportunities.

Public Health and Medicine Interest Group (PHMIG)

Established in 2006, this student group works to increase awareness of public health issues through education and activism. The mission of the Public Health and Medicine Interest Group is to:

• Promote increased awareness of public health issues, provide exposure to the work being done in public health by UW-Madison faculty and give students the opportunity to learn by initiating, developing, and participating in their own public health projects
• Provide discussions and seminars dedicated to increasing the awareness of public health issues
• Inspire and motivate students from all health care fields to become more aware of public health issues and their complexities as well as to understand medicine and public health as integrated and overlapping concepts.

Membership is open to any student enrolled in the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, resident or staff member and any practicing physicians in the Madison community. Members are self-selected based on interest in public health and the organization.

Elective Interdisciplinary Seminar Courses

During the first years of medical school, students have the opportunity to expand their horizons through a variety of one-credit seminar courses. The following courses provide students with an open forum to discuss relevant issues facing today's physicians:

• Physicians as Activists. In Physicians as Health Activists, students meet doctors who work as community health activists and develop activist skills such as delivering effective presentations, organizing community efforts, fundraising and working with the media.
• SEED (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity). Student SEED is a social justice seminar where students examine issues of privilege and oppression as they play out in the arenas of ethnicity, socioeconomics, geography, gender, sexual orientation and religion through both the "textbooks of our lives" and scholarly readings.
• Intercultural Communications in Health Care. Students seeking an experiential learning approach can learn about differences linked to power, culture, gender, age and professional roles within the context of health care in the seminar, Intercultural Communications in Health Care.

LOCUS

LOCUS is an extracurricular, longitudinal service-learning program at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health that aims to enhance students' leadership knowledge and skills, self-awareness, and preparation for community health service.

Medical students, faculty and staff of the Department of Family Medicine established LOCUS in 1998 with the idea that students have opportunities to remain actively involved in community service during medical school. Their vision was to create a program to support medical students who:

• Enter medical school with a strong commitment to community service
• Acknowledge problems in our current health care system and wish to enhance health care for medically underserved populations
• Recognize that effective leadership skills may be combined with medical skills to improve health care
• Wish to join a community of like-minded students, staff and faculty
• Are self-directed learners who are willing to enhance their skills through participation in the program and completion of a community health project

The result of their vision was the LOCUS program.

Shapiro Summer Research Program

The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health provides support for medical students seeking mentored research experiences between their first and second year of medical school.

The purpose of the Shapiro Summer Research Program is to provide funded opportunities for students to participate in a full-time summer research project for eight to 12 weeks under the supervision of a faculty member. Projects may be in all areas of basic science, clinical, translational, health services, global and public health research.

The program is designed to provide students with an appreciation for the nature of scientific research and develop skills in data collection, analysis and presentation of results to the medical community. Proposed projects should have a central hypothesis or research goal, with methods that are designed to test the hypothesis through the collection of quantifiable data.

The student should play an active role in conducting the experiments or gathering the data, and in the analysis of the data, rather than function in a purely technical role on the project.

Milwaukee Public Health Scholars Program

The Milwaukee Public Health Scholars Program supports innovative student projects designed to meet the public health needs of the greater Milwaukee community.

The Milwaukee Public Health Scholars Program provides students with an increased understanding of the effects of poverty, and of racial and ethnic health disparities in an urban community, and assists them in developing the leadership, research and programmatic skills necessary to reduce such disparities. Eligible students must be pursuing a graduate or professional degree.