Optional Enrichment Elective
Understanding and Improving Our Health Care System- Fall 2006
Course Schedule:
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Suggested Readings:
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Course Description
The
Understanding and Improving Our Health Care System
elective is the result of a collaborative effort between faculty and students to address several important issues that will affect us as health care providers. The health care system is an entity that we often hear about, but very rarely have the opportunity to learn about. This elective couples lectures and clinical correlations with interactive discussions that provide students with opportunities to ask the questions that we all have about how the system works. We will address access to health care, rising costs, current events, policy, and advocacy among other topics. This course also provides a foundation for the
Money and Power in Medicine
elective, which focuses on important financial aspects of practicing medicine in today’s health care environment.
Money and Power in Medicine
will be held during the spring semester.
Understanding and Improving Our Health Care System
will begin on September 19th and will meet on six evenings throughout the semester. Each session will last approximately 1.5 hours. The format for the class sessions will include guest speakers, group discussions and interactive exercises.
The main objective of this course is to provide health profession students with an understanding of the U.S. and Massachusetts health care systems so that as future clinicians they can be more effective in delivering appropriate health care to individual patients as well as in improving the health care system overall. We hope that you will join in this discussion of how we can work more effectively within the system as it is and how we can improve it.
If you so choose, your participation in the course will be mentioned on your dean’s letter contingent upon your satisfying some basic course requirements. These course requirements will be available soon.
This course is co-sponsored by Commonwealth Medicine, the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health and the University of Massachusetts Medical School's Center for Health Policy and Research.
Faculty
Suzanne Cashman, SCD, Email:
Suzanne.Cashman@umassmed.edu
Jay Himmelstein, MD, MPH, Email:
Jay.Himmelstein@umassmed.edu
Student Organizers
Jay Lawrence, Email:
Jay.Lawrence@umassmed.edu
Wynne Morgan, Email:
Wynne.Morgan@umassmed.edu