Faculty Director: Dr. Odrin Castillo

The Community Medicine Area of Concentration is a longitudinal curriculum designed to broaden the resident’s understanding of providing medical care to vulnerable populations in a community setting. This includes the study of social determinants of health, health disparities, and barriers to care for our patients at the individual, community, and systemic levels. With these factors in mind, our goal is to explore, design, and implement effective interventions to promote health and prevent disease for our most vulnerable patients.

This track is designed to provide extra training on multiple aspects of community medicine, specifically: social determinants of health, health equity, public health, community needs assessment, and community engagement. After completion of this track, residents should have a deeper understanding of the needs of vulnerable populations, and have the knowledge and experience to be a physician leader in the community.

On completion of the curriculum in this Area of Concentration, each resident should be able to:

  • Understand the importance of social determinants of health and how they contribute to disparities in health
  • Provide longitudinal care for vulnerable populations, including people who are not stably housed, undocumented immigrants, people with limited English proficiency
  • Analyze specific health disparities and learn how to implement community-based projects to address these disparities
  • Better understand the community resources available to low-income/underserved patients
  • Learn the basics of how a community clinic operates
  • Teach medical students and residents about urban underserved medicine and social determinants of health

Highlights:

  • Continuity clinic at our FQHC (Westside) in an underserved, under-resourced community start in PGY-2 year
  • A longitudinal year-long street medicine experience during PGY-3
  • Precepting medical students at the Lestonnac Free Clinic in Garden Grove
  • Involvement with the Neighborhood MED undergraduate pipeline program
  • Participation in the Diversity and Health Equity Committee
  • Attending the APHA National Conference or National Health Disparities Conference
  • Attending Community Collaboration Events
  • Experiencing didactics on Community Medicine