Journal of general internal medicine
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Although health disparities are commonly addressed in preclinical didactic curricula, direct patient care activities with affected communities are more limited. ⋯ Our student-led didactic and experiential elective can serve as an interprofessional curricular model for learning about specific health disparities while providing important services to the local community.
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The intersection of two trends in health intervention has the potential to fundamentally change the practice of medicine. First, research into the social determinants of health is revealing the mechanisms by which living conditions cause disease. ⋯ These trends have profound implications for medical education. Whereas traditional educational paradigms favor a "bottom-up" approach to disease-focusing on molecular origins or organ systems-new paradigms must emphasize the entire causal chain of ill health to facilitate the understanding of novel interventions available to tomorrow's clinician.