MED 40899: Selec in Pop Hlth Res at School of Medicine

About this course

The purpose of this course is to give our first year medical students an opportunity to engage in research, from beginning to end. It is a required part of our curriculum in support of our mission to train future physicians to be active consumers and producers of the medical literature and to prepare them to engage in evidence-based medicine. We believe this is best accomplished by having a research experience in which they identify a relevant research problem, define a strong research question, develop a testable hypothesis, conduct a sound literature review, collect and analyze data that can answer their research question, and make causal inferences from their results. Students will apply what they have learned in previous courses and practice their epidemiology, biostatistics and population health skills.To accomplish this, students will work together to carry out a research project that is developed by the Course Director. All students will work on the same topic over the course of the semester and pool their work. This work will be conducted in small groups, and the final course project is a paper in the format of a publishable manuscript that reports on the study.While students are conducting this research, they will also review important research methods, epidemiology and biostatistics topics that are crucial for their USMLE Step 1 Exam.