Integrative Cases

Integrative Cases are an innovative educational experience in which first- and second-year medical students examine an issue or case from many perspectives, including basic science, clinical, public health, social/ethical issues and health care systems. The cases bring students together with community public health practitioners as well as clinicians and scientists across the campus.

Through small group active, experience-based activities and faculty-led small group discussions, students discover many factors influencing health and wellbeing, the interconnections between those factors, and important roles for physicians in promoting health and wellbeing for both individuals and populations that extend beyond traditional ideas of clinical medical care. Students also explore themes in medicine that will recur in their training and throughout their medical careers.

First- and second-year medical students each have 2-4 cases per year, typically over two days, following their exams. The cases were introduced into the curriculum in 2008-09 with the first-year students. 

Overarching Integrative Case Goals for Year 1

1. Make connections across basic science, clinical medicine and public health

2. Recognize the distinction between population and individual approaches to health

3. Participate in experiences and examine themes that introduce a more expansive view of medicine and public health

4. Explore questions that promote interest and inquiry towards future and lifelong learning

5. Recognize the impacts of multiple systems on health

6. Develop an understanding of patient perspectives in the context of clinical and public health approaches

Overarching Integrative Case Goals for Year 2

1. Make connections across basic science, clinical medicine and public health

2. Participate in experiences and examine themes that introduce a more expansive view of medicine and public health

3. Explore questions that promote interest and inquiry towards future and lifelong learning

4. Recognize the impacts of multiple systems on patient health

5. Demonstrate strategies that integrate a public health perspective in order to improve the health of individual and communities

6. Develop an understanding of patient perspectives in the context of clinical and public health approaches

2010-11 Topics

M1 Students

• October: Upstream from the Emergency Department
• November: Healthy Birth Outcomes
• January: Part 1 of a DUI Crash (acute issues)
• April: Part II of a DUI Crash (chronic, long-term issues)

M2 Students

• October: Health Policymaking: Testifying at the Capitol
• February: Tuberculosis (global, immigrant health) with poverty simulation

2009-10 Topics

M1 Students

• October 2009: Faces of Patients - Extended (Autism, Depression, Parkinson's Disease, Sickle Cell Disease, Cystic Fibrosis)
• November 2009: Reducing the incidence and consequences of preterm birth
• January 2010: Part I of a DUI crash (acute issues)
• March 2010: Part II of a DUI crash (chronic, long-term issues)

M2 Students

• October 2009: Health Systems
• December 2009: Obesity
• February 2010: TB

2008-09 Topics

• October 2008: Reducing the incidence and consequences of preterm birth
• November 2008: Should we screen and treat children for high cholesterol? (examining the new AAP guidelines)
• February 2009: Part I of a DUI crash (acute issues)
• April 2009: Part II of a DUI crash (chronic, long-term issues)

For further information, contact: Renie Schapiro, MPH at rschapir@wisc.edu.