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COPC: The Family Medicine-Preventive Medicine Link The COPC curriculum is based in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, a partnership between Palmetto Richland Memorial Hospital and the USC School of Medicine. The department is one of only a few in the country to join family medicine and preventive medicine. Although the COPC curriculum began in 1994 as a family medicine program, faculty members soon realized the value of creating an interdisciplinary community experience for both family and preventive medicine residents. The curriculum was designed from the outset with input from preventive medicine faculty, and the inclusion of preventive medicine residents in the curriculum and rotation in 1995 was a logical extension. Since 1996, family and preventive medicine residents have been assigned to COPC project teams. Each team is assigned to a community preceptor whose practice serves a medically underserved community. Over the course of an academic year each team works with its preceptor and community to collect and interpret community health data, identify a significant community health problem, develop and implement an intervention to address that health problem, and evaluate the intervention. Projects have addressed transportation barriers to accessing medical care, STDs in pregnant teenage women, immunization of children in the foster care system, youth risk factors in a rural community, and other topics. This interdisciplinary COPC experience benefits participants in several ways. First, residents in the two disciplines combine their expertise to address preventable health problems in the community rotation sites more effectively than either could alone. Second, family practice residents learn and apply basic principles of public health and preventive medicine. Third, preventive medicine residents experience the clinical aspects of community practice. And finally, residents in both disciplines learn to work together and with other health professionals.
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Copyright 2001 Palmetto Richland Memorial Hospital/USC School of Medicine
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