Thinking of developing a new Population and Community Health Clerkship (PCHC)? Here's a quick overview, with details and the forms you'll need below.
Timeline
May-June: Team development
July 1: Team descriptions due >>Deadline extended to July 5
July 15: Catalog to learners for ranking
August 1: Rankings due
August 15: Teams announced
September 16-26: Host PCHC team
September 27: Presentation Day
September 30: Students' last day to submit assignments
October 4: Student evaluations should be submitted using
Each PCHC small group "team" should focus on a specific population or community defined by membership in a social or geographic group that may be useful for learners to consider when providing medical care (eg: seniors at risk of falls, veterans, people living with chronic skin conditions, people of child-bearing age). Our goal is to help learners see
how membership in a community can make it easier or more difficult to be healthy, and
how thinking about a population as the unit of care can help them think creatively about community-level and structural solutions.
RESPONSIBILITIES are often shared between several members of each clerkship's team leadership. Ideally, team leadership will include a combination of people that includes all of these characteristics:
a faculty appointment at UMass Chan
connection to a community partner organization working with the population of interest.
ability to demonstrate the real-world use of data to define and understand a population
clinical experience relevant to the population or community
administrative and communication skills
protected time to develop a schedule in advance
protected time to spend with learners for 7-8 days in September
time and ability to read and respond to reflective writing during the clerkship and assign grades for professionalism and engagement at the conclusion
knowledge of a community need that could be addressed through service
Each team must have at least one faculty co-lead to oversee development of the two-week schedule, ensure that expectations are met and assignments completed, and to determine student grades.
We encourage teams to identify community-based co-leads, people who work somewhere other than UMass Chan whose professional roles and/or lived experience allows them to contribute unique and valuable insight that will improve our learners' ability to understand, connect with and provide the best care for the population of interest for your team. Ideally, the service project and learning experience will be shaped by community-defined ideas for engagement.
Some teams have student co-leads, who work with team leaders to connect with community partners, identify and plan potential service projects, and develop schedules for the PCHC in September
There are opportunities to use Pathway dedicated time preparing a community-based experience that furthers the community-identified goals of a longitudinal project. Student engaged in planning have the opportunity to pre-select into the team without participation in the ranking process, and to take a student co-lead role.
Student co-leads provide a perspective informed by the relationships they have built in advance. They often aid with social media communication during the clerkship to ensure all team members know where to be and when during the immersion. Students are not expected to develop clerkship schedules without close and consistent academic and/or community faculty involvement and guidance throughout the process. Student co-leads should not be asked to read and respond to reflections or assign grades.
Note that this is a new site, still in development. We welcome feedback at PCHC@umassmed.edu .
Develop Clerkship Description based on population of interest, confirm teaching team members, and submit to PCHC@umassmed.edu by July 1. Click on the blue button below for a team description template.
Team Assignment: Students who are not already connected to a team by mid-July will have the opportunity to review the team catalog and rank their placement choices, providing an explanatory paragraph as to the choices they've made and how strongly they feel about them. Some students take an exploratory approach and prefer a team outside their specialty, while others are quite interested in a specific team based on those specialty choices. Students in the Urban and Rural Health Scholars programs are placed on their preferred teams first, then the rest of the class is placed to maximize the number of students getting into a ranked team.
The field experience: planning and oversight of 6 hours of educational activity during each of 7-8 days in September. Activities should be relevant to interprofessional care of the team's specified population or community of interest, including educational and service activities, reflective writing and oral presentation development, as described in syllabus. Active engagement with members of the population or community of interest is strongly encouraged. This should be an in-person learning experience whenever possible, introducing learners to a range of settings outside of the academic and clinical.
Faculty are responsible for
Orienting students to the population/community of interest and hosting organizations on Day One of the clerkship
Reading and responding to each student’s reflection assignments at end of Week One and leading at least one reflection discussion with the group to explore assumptions that have been enforced or challenged and to share key takeaways
Serving as a resource for students for data gathering, advocacy information, and introductions to relevant personnel in the service system.
Coordinating the assignment and communication of grades to clerkship administration. You will be asked to rate each student's professional engagement and reflection through rubrics that will be shared prior to the start of the clerkship.
Thank you for sharing your expertise and/or lived experience by leading a small group team in the PCHC. We strongly encourage you to plan experiential learning opportunities through in-person activities in off-campus settings whenever possible. Students have completed some clinical rotations, but this is not a clinical rotation. Students should be focusing on understanding the kinds of care and healing and support available outside the clinic through the newly focused clinical lens they are developing.
All team-based experiences must include:
Hosting 4-10 medical students 10am - 4pm from September 16-26 (see schedule on page 2)
Identification of a population or community of focus and activities that further refine our definition through review of existing data
At least one discussion with a community partner about how they use data to identify and respond to strengths and needs
Meetings or visits with two or more organizations offering interprofessional resources that would benefit the population or community of focus, learning about the requirements and processes for referring patients
Opportunities for guided reflection exploring assumptions and experiences with feedback from the community perspective
Team experiences should also include activities that address community-identified need with careful consideration of potential unintended consequences
Students will complete 2 independent learning module assignments and attend population and community health lectures each morning during Week 1. Team leaders are welcome. Learner attendance is required, though team leaders can arrange for their students to watch asynchronously with advance notice, to accommodate small group experiences that are time-sensitive.
New this year:
Community Health Learner Engagement Mixer, September 24, 2-5pm: Worcester Area Mission Society, 6 Institute Road
This is an opportunity for local agencies to explain who they are and what services they provide, as well as upcoming priorities and projects for which they imagine student roles. Students actively engaged in existing community-based projects are also invited to host tables explaining the work and engaging new learners to continue toward community goals.
This event allows agencies and project-based teams to reach students, faculty and staff from different schools at one time, and to recruit students from different majors for different project needs. First year med students will attend the fair in batches sorted by learning community. MS3s placed with community partners will be well-positioned to support agency participation and succession planning for their own longitudinal projects.
This is a free-standing event with the Higher Education Collaborative of Central MA (HECCMA) and the Coalition for a Healthy Greater Worcester (CHGW) and not a requirement of the PCHC. Agencies not hosting our students can still participate in the Learner Engagement Mixer.
Student clearance doc - insurance, vaccinations, trainings for med students; Updated September 2024
Photo consent form:
Photo Consent Form 2022 -All access version
PhotoConsent_UMassChan22 - SharePoint Access version
All are welcome and encouraged to attend Presentation Day on September 27, as we host peer and community learning sessions with oral presentations as described in syllabus. Sessions are held from 9-11am and 1-3pm via zoom. If you have a preference for morning or afternoon, let us know in advance at PCHC@umassmed.edu .
Clerkship leaders are expected to
read and respond to students' reflections in a timely manner; this response may be written or in small group discussion.
share narrative feedback directly with learners (now optional)
gather input from those interacting with our learners and complete a brief grading form for each learner by Friday October 4 at the very latest. This link will be sent to the faculty of record for each team. Questions on the survey will ask you to rate the learners on the following dimensions:
The student demonstrated professionalism (i.e., honesty, integrity, altruism, compassion, boundaries, and respect) through their behavior.
The student demonstrated professionalism (i.e., honesty, integrity, altruism, compassion, boundaries, and respect) through their language.
The student developed fulfilling relationships by fostering a sense of inclusion, cooperation, and well-being with colleagues and team members.
The student developed fulfilling relationships by fostering a sense of inclusion, cooperation, and well-being with patients (or community members).
What is one thing that impressed you about the student?
What is one suggestion you might give to the student going forward?
The academic faculty lead, with a valid faculty appointment at the UMass Chan Medical School, should assign grades using the grading instrument sent to them by email.
This clerkship provides opportunity for learners to demonstrate achievement of the following milestones:
• Adv1E. Understands the determinants of health of individual patients and vulnerable populations, recognizing the impact on healthcare access, wellness and disease and uses knowledge to improve patient care.
• Adv3E. Understands the physician’s obligation of contributing to the common good and designs projects or activities that enhance the well-being of others.
• Nav1E. Understands the dual roles of quality improvement and patient safety in healthcare, participating in the identification of, and response to, performance gaps in in existing processes.
• Nav2E. Operates within a variety of healthcare settings, collaborating with interprofessional personnel, and gaining higher-level knowledge of processes including financing and transitions of care.
• Nav4E. Applies knowledge of population health and health equity to how health outcomes vary within and across populations.