Optional Enrichment Elective

The Realities of the U.S. Health Care System

Fall 2005 /Spring 2006- Syllabus

Welcome to this elective -- the result of a collaborative effort between faculty and students to address a very important topic that will affect us as physicians. 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 with clinical correlations and allows students 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 things. Below you will find a list of the planned lectures and a description of the requirements if you would like this elective to be mentioned on your dean’s letter. We are very excited to be able to offer this elective and look forward to working with all of you so that we might all better understand the system and our role in its evolution.

In order to be granted credit for having participated in this elective, you will need to meet two requirements: 1) attend at least six of the seven planned lectures, and 2) write a 1 page Op-Ed style piece exploring a solution to the current Massachusetts health care reform debate, which we will discuss as a group. The purpose of the assignment is to prepare you for the last elective session, which will be a debate among leading Massachusetts health policy advocates. There will be a question/answer period in the end.

Two hours will be allotted for each of the seven classes; the majority of the classes are scheduled for Thursday evenings from 6:00- 8:00 pm, the dates of the last two sessions remain to be announced. The format will consist of an hour lecture followed by discussion. When appropriate, clinical correlations will be included following the discussion to show the application for the topic discussed in the lecture.

If you have any questions about the course, please feel free to contact us. Thank you very much for your participation and we look forward to the semester. We will keep you posted about the schedule.

Faculty

Suzanne Cashman, SCD, Email: Suzanne.Cashman@umassmed.edu

Jay Himmelstein, MD, MPH, Email: Jay.Himmelstein@umassmed.edu

Student Organizers

Stephanie Carter, Email: Stephanie.Carter@umassmed.edu

Joel Elzweig, Email: Joel.Elzweig@umassmed.edu

Talia Pindyck, Email: Talia.Pindyck@umassmed.edu

If you have any questions about the course, please feel free to contact us. Thank you very much for your participation and we look forward to the semester. We will keep you posted about the schedule.

Click here to view the Lecture Topics, Speakers and Discussant and Dates.