This program will support three trainees per year in a competency-based, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)-accredited institutional program leading to completion of physician residency requirements in Occupational Medicine. The Meharry Medical College program is the only Occupational Medicine Residency program in Tennessee as well as the only such program offered by the nation's four Historically Black Medical Schools. Consistent with the mission of Meharry Medical College, the program aims to educate and serve those in need by identifying physicians-in-training with a commitment to practice in vulnerable working populations and a desire to serve through the prevention and treatment of occupational and environmental diseases. Physicians completing the program will be skilled in the diagnosis and treatment of occupational injury and disease;develop and administer occupational and environmental health programs for unions, industry, government and academic institutions, and be active in the development of scientific, legal, political and ethical questions of the field. The academic year leads to a Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) accredited Master of Science in Public Health degree from Meharry's School of Graduate Studies. Residents are required to complete a research thesis on an occupational health and safety area as part of this academic experience. The Occupational Medicine Residency program aims to have each resident present the results of their research work at a national scientific meeting and to submit the work for consideration to be published in a peer reviewed scientific journal. The practicum year experience provides each resident with exposure to a variety of occupational medicine settings employing vulnerable populations, including low income military veterans, migrant farm workers, and African American and Latino workers in urban settings. There is a heavy emphasis on becoming competent in providing culturally appropriate health promotion services. Partly because of Meharry's status as one of the major producers of minority physicians, the Meharry Occupational Medicine program has a record of not only attracting minority physicians who go on to practice occupational medicine, but who also give back to the program and the field by serving as mentors for the next generation.
This program will provide much needed post- MD training for physicians interested in practicing occupational preventive medicine. At the end of a rigorous 24-month period, the physician trainees will have demonstrated competency in all academic and clinical areas required for eligibility to take the specialty certification examination of the American Board of Preventive Medicine. True to the mission of Meharry Medical College (an Historically Black College and University) and based on prior program experience, these physicians are also likely to serve vulnerable US populations and to give back to the program by helping to train still newer generations of occupational medicine physicians.
| Chen, Zhiqiang; Chakrabarty, Sangita; Levine, Robert S et al. (2013) Work-related knee injuries treated in US emergency departments. J Occup Environ Med 55:1091-9 |
