The purpose of the program is to improve and expand the teaching of preventive pulmonary medicine to medical students, house staff and practicing physicians. A preliminary assessment of the predoctoral curriculum indicates inadequate coverage of basic preventative pulmonary concepts; however a number of changes have recently been implemented or are being planned which present opportunities for the longitudinal integration of preventive pulmonary medicine throughout the four years of the medical school curriculum. In the pre-clinical years, a three semester Social and Behavioral Sciences course presents (1) normal human development including a section on adult health behavior and health maintenance; (2) clinical epidemiology and ; (3) clinical behavioral case conference. The consequence of smoking, the role of the physician in health promotion, the epidemiology of chronic lung disease and the behavioral and community medicine aspects of pulmonary disease will be integrated into the Behavioral Sciences course. A new course implemented in 1988, is a preventive medicine component of Introduction to Clinical Medicine in the first year- a presentation on smoking behavior and smoking cessation will be developed as a part of this course. For the clinical years, 3 teaching modules in preventive pulmonary medicine will be developed for presentation during the medicine clerkship lecture series. In addition, a required clinical preventive medicine course in the senior year has been proposed and will emphasize disease prevention land the role of the physician. Recently, the Education Council of the medical school approved a required fourth year primary care block using the ambulatory clinics in internal medicine, family medicine, and pediatrics. Preventive pulmonary medicine in the ambulatory setting, especially, smoking cessation will be a major part of this required experience. For residents, 9 modules in preventive pulmonary medicine will be adapted and developed as grand rounds and conference presentations and for practicing physicians and the modules will incorporate self directed learning to supplement the presentations. Evaluation will be done with clinical case-problem oriented testing, clinical case-problem oriented testing, clinical simulation cases and observation. Development and evaluation of education programs will be done in collaboration with Dr. Hosokawa (Department of Family and Community Medicine). The research project, done in collaboration with Dr. DiLorenzo ( Department of Psychology), will devise and evaluate a smoking cessation program for lower socio-economic groups.
