Competencies

Occupational Medicine:

Residents must be able to perform the following tasks:

  1. Manage the health status of individuals who in diverse work setting.
  1. Adequate supervised time in direct clinical care of workers, from numerous employers and employed in more than one work setting, must be provided to ensure competency in mitigating managing medical problems of workers.
  1. Residents must be able to assess safe/unsafe work practices and to safeguard employees and others, based on clinic and worksite experience.
  1. Monitor/survey workforces and interpret monitoring/surveillance data for prevention of disease in workplaces and to enhance the health and productivity of workers.
    Active participation in several surveillance or monitoring programs, for different types of workforces, is required to learn principles of administration and maintenance of practical workforce and environmental public health programs. Residents must plan at least one such program. 
  2. Manage worker insurance documentation and paperwork, for work-related injuries that may arise in numerous work settings
    Residents should first learn worker insurance competencies under direct supervision of faculty and demonstrate competency to "open," direct, and "close" injury/illness cases. 
  3. Recognize outbreak events of public health significance, as they appear in clinical or consultation settings
    1. Residents should understand the concept of sentinel events, and know how to assemble/work with a team of fellow professionals who can evaluate and identify worksite public health causes of injury and illness.
    2. Residents must be able to recognize and evaluate potentially hazardous workplace and environment conditions, and recommend controls or programs to reduce exposures, and to enhance the health and productivity of workers.
    3. Reliance on toxicologic and risk assessment principles in the evaluation of hazards must be demonstrated.

     

  4. Report outcome findings of clinical and surveillance evaluations to affected workers as ethically required; advise management concerning summary (rather than individual) results or trends of public health significance.

Documentation Requirement: Resident schedules, rotation descriptions, interinstitutional agreements.

Measure: Competencies, skills and knowledge relevant to preventive intervention in the workplace are addressed in workplace settings. The resident has the opportunity to demonstrate constructive participation in comprehensive programs to prevent occupational injury and illness and maintain worker health. Clinic settings demonstrate bridging from clinical activities to effective preventive intervention in the workplace.

 
 Core Preventive Medicine:

The attainment of advanced preventive medicine practice competencies requires a sequence of continued learning and supervised application of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of preventive medicine in the specialty area. The resident must assume progressive responsibility for patients and/or the clinical and administrative management of populations or communities during the course of training.

  1. Communication, program, and needs assessment
  1. Communicate clearly to multiple professional and lay target groups, in both written and oral presentations, the level of risk from hazards and the rationale for interventions.
  2. Conduct program and needs assessments and prioritize activities using objective, measurable criteria such as epidemiological impact and cost-effectiveness.
  1. Computer applications relevant to preventive medicine

Residents shall be able to use computers for word processing, reference retrieval, statistical analysis, graphic display, database management, and communication.

  1. Interpretation of relevant laws and regulations

Residents shall be able to identify and review relevant laws and regulations germane to the resident's specialty area and assignments.

  1. Identification of ethical, social, and cultural issues relating to public health and preventive medicine contexts

Residents shall be able to recognize ethical, cultural, and social issues related to a particular issue and develop interventions and programs that acknowledge and appropriately address the issues.

  1. Identification of organizational and decision-making processes

Residents shall be able to identify organizational decision-making structures, stakeholders, style and processes.

  1. Identification and coordination of resources to improve the community's health

Residents shall be able to asses program and community resources, develop a plan for appropriate resources, and integrate resources for a program implementation.

  1. Epidemiology and biostatistics, including the ability to
  1. characterize the health of a community
  2. design and conduct an epidemiological study
  3. design and operate a surveillance system
  4. select and conduct appropriate statistical analyses
  5. design and conduct an outbreak or cluster investigation and,
  6. translate epidemiological findings into a recommendation for a specific intervention.
  1. Management and administration, including the ability to
  1. asses data and formulate policy for a given health issue
  2. develop and implement a plan to address a specific health problem
  3. conduct an evaluation or quality assessment based on process and outcome performance measures, and
  4. manage the human and financial resources for the operation of a program or project.
  1. Clinical preventive medicine, including the ability to
  1. develop, deliver, and implement, under supervision, appropriate clinical services for both individuals and populations and
  2. evaluate the effectiveness of clinical services for both individuals and populations.
  1. Occupational and environmental health, including opportunities for residents to be able to asses and respond to individual and population risks for occupational and environmental disorder.

Documentation Requirement: Resident schedules, rotation descriptions, interinstitutional agreements

Measure: Adequate depth and breadth is provided

Core Preventive Medicine:
  1. Core knowledge content areas

The program must address in adequate depth and breadth the following competencies, skills, and knowledge that underlie the practice of preventive medicine:

  1. Health services administration
  2. Biostatistics
  3. Epidemiology
  4. Clinical preventive medicine
  5. Behavioral aspects of health
  6. Environmental health
  1. Aerospace medicine knowledge content areas
  1. History of aerospace medicine
  2. The flight environment
  3. Clinical aerospace medicine
  4. Operational aerospace medicine
  5. Management and administration
  1. Occupational medicine knowledge content areas
  1. Disability management and work fitness
  2. Workplace health and surveillance
  3. Hazard recognition, evaluation, and control
  4. Clinical occupational medicine
  5. Regulations and government agencies
  6. Environmental health and risk assessment
  7. Health promotion and clinical prevention
  8. Management and administration
  9. Toxicology
  1. Public health and general preventive medicine

The knowledge content areas for public health and general preventive medicine, while similar to those of the core content areas, emphasize more in-depth knowledge in each area.

  1. Health services administration, public health practice, and managerial medicine
  2. Environmental health
  3. Biostatistics
  4. Epidemiology
  5. Clinical preventive medicine

Documentation Requirements: Resident schedules, resident academic records, rotation and course descriptions, academic transcripts.

Measure: The academic courses cover the knowledge areas listed above.