Commentary
Enhancing Community Health by Improving Physician Participation
Crump C1,2*, Arniella G1,2 and Calman NS1,2
1Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, USA
2Institute for Family Health, New York, USA
- *Corresponding Author:
- Casey Crump, M.D., Ph.D
Department of Family Medicine and Community Health
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
One Gustave L. Levy Place
Box 1077, New York, USA
Tel: (212) 659-1471
Fax: (212) 423-2998
E-mail: casey.crump@mssm.edu
Received date: September 22, 2016; Accepted date: October 13, 2016; Published date: October 17, 2016
Citation: Crump C, Arniella G, Calman NS (2016) Enhancing Community Health by Improving Physician Participation. J Community Med Health Educ 6:470. doi:10.4172/2161-0711.1000470
Copyright: © 2016 Crump C, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Leading medical associations have called for renewed standards of medical professionalism, including stronger public advocacy, a commitment to social justice in health care, and greater community engagement. New strategies are needed to enhance community participation among physicians, which can improve public trust in the medical profession and contribute needed expertise and teamwork to matters of community health. One strategy is to incorporate community participation and leadership in medical training through community-based organization (CBO) placement of residents. We describe a model CBO placement program within a family medicine residency in Harlem, New York City. This program enables residents to partner with organizations that address social, political, economic, and environmental determinants of health in underserved populations, and to assume leadership roles in community health activities. Broader implementation of this model in other settings, both urban and rural, can enhance community participation by physicians within a sustainable framework, and promote medical professionalism and community health.