THE TEACHING OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND PREVENTIVE MEDICINE IN MEDICAL EDUCTIONA

Abstract

The need of the society for medical and health care services and the question of training of physician and medical education program, are major problems which the health and education planners are faced with. The increasing tendency toward specialization in various branches of medicine, has created a significant gap between the rea1 medical need of the community, ie, primary comprehensive health care and what the medical profession offers at the time being; in other words the medical profession is gradually losing the social and humanitarian aspects of their services: In order to overcome these problems, there is an urgent need for the critical redefinition of the objectives of medical education and the training of physicians and as a consequence, a sound revision in medical education program. The present paper has tried to review some aspects of this very complex and important subject. In the present paper, the teaching of Public Health and Preventive Medicine in Medical Education and their p1aces in the medical curriculum are discussed. The aims and objectives, of medical education in general and for Iran, in particular, are reviewed. The principles governing the training of General Practitioner and development of a vide-spectrum medical, health and socio-economic know ledge and skill are pointed out: The contents of Public health and preventive medicine programmers and their distribution throughout the medical curricu1um (in pre-clinical and clinical periods) are detailed and exemplified, and the conditions to secure the proper implementation of such programmers are presented.