Community medicine is felt to be uninteresting because often students expect it to be hard science without sufficient grounding in social, historical and geographical aspects of medicine.

It should not be forgotten that medicine is a science as well as art of healing and community medicine more so.

Any body who has little interest in the humanities will find it dull and boring. The teachers need to lay emphasis on it too.

One of the ways we try to make it interesting to our medical students is by teaching it through projects (community projects as well as international experiences); still it is a struggle, but we get a few very interested students in the process who go on to specialize in community medicine.

When something in basic sciences is not interesting enough, there is something wrong with the materials. One of the major problems that we have in community medicine is the lack of interdisciplinary science in it. Even most of the teachers are not aware of the concept. It we introduce the interdisiplinarity into community medicine, we surly will observe an increase in the level of interests.

Partly true; we do have interdisciplinarity in our presentations and the basic concepts are interweaved with clinical concepts. Nevertheless, the interest is limited. By taking them into real community settings, a group of students get very excited and interested, but still a large group show lack of interest. OF course, it also depends on the teachers and how they present the material and the experience to the students.

We have almost equated Community Medicine to Public Health over the years. In fact, there exists a conceptual difference between these. Thanks to Milton Terris with his far sighted vision (1985, see attachment), that the realities what we see now are the consequences of this equation. Only if the teachers of community medicine imbibe and understand this, public health or community medicine education could be made interesting!

attached: Milton Terris

Ans: By integrating it with practice.

Community Medicine practice is the missing link. If we practise community medicine through health centres attached to our institutions and make it our primary role as community physicians, it will automatically become a interesting subject.

We as teachers may implement community medicine concepts in our health centre, students can get an hands on training in community medicine in these health centres, models of public health care delivery can be evaluated in them.

The focus of a community physician must be community medicine practice through health centres (field practice areas), this would make existing teaching, training and research interesting and practical.

Practice of Community Medicine = Primary health care + Health centre management + health promotion + application of relevant epidemiology concepts

Community Medicine is not a basic science subject. Its a clinical speciality.

It might have become one in the view of students because of the way its taught, lack of relevant exposure and its started right from first semester along with other pre clinical subjects.

Community medicine is felt to be uninteresting because often students expect it to be hard science without sufficient grounding in social, historical and geographical aspects of medicine.

It should not be forgotten that medicine is a science as well as art of healing and community medicine more so.

Any body who has little interest in the humanities will find it dull and boring. The teachers need to lay emphasis on it too.

Community medicine is preventive medicine and clinical skills are applied in early detection of prevailing illness or diseases. Community medicine is actually reaching out to the outreached community who are unable to come forward to hospitals in the cities due to poverty or unacessable residential areas.

I feel the introduction to primary health care should be made interesting and medical students should be allowed to go to the rural areas to get the feel of how the poor live, the food that is available and the predisposing factors to ill health that can be seen.

It is a pleasure to serve the poor and see the warm smile on their faces when they are relieved of the pain and suffering they had gone through. When the Health Care Provider is unable to relief the pain and suffering identified - the client needs to be refered to the nearest available medical resource. Follow up is as important in community medicine to observe the progress of your client.

I have served the rural communities for 30 ++ years and still enjoy it as the rural community are sincere and grateful for whatever little relief we are able to provide them with.

clinical/ nonclinical: basic science/clinical@ many arguments: I personally believe your interest on the subject as the most important factor. and how does anything else matter. In truth you get utmost satisfaction out of community service

I think the CDC did a great job with their disaster prep pages... they turned it into a zombie invasion.. if you haven't read it, you should....

To make community medicine practice an interesting field: first of all one should have a keen interest in the subject: then try to find a problem: initiate solution prospectively and the results will be in front of you: nothing is more satisfying than helping people directly

Hi Brijesh, You have included two fields under one broad category. While some definitions combine the two fields and define community medicine as public health services emphasizing preventive medicine and epidemiology for members of a community, others keep them distinct; Community medicine is a branch of medicine that deals with prevention of diseases and promotion of health among "healthy people"; while public health is defined as a process of mobilizing local, state, national and international resources to solve major health problems affecting communities to achieve health for all. In my opinion incorporating lifestyle medicine, a branch of public health that deals with diet, exercise, (physical health) as well as emotional, social, intellectual, spiritual, and environmental health could make community medicine and public health very relevant and interesting.

On the one hand, I'm shocked! On the other hand, I'm not surprised! Perhaps a good place to start is with Bartholomew et al.'s (2011) "Intervention Mapping Approach"--see below for my "rave review" of their book(s). Anyone who is serious about medicine has to be serious about community medicine; anyone who is serious about community medicine, has to be serious about the best-possible decision-making based upon the very best available evidence (including "scientific method") and theories (of the problem and of the solution/action). You can't do better than Bartholomew et al. (2011) if you want to learn how to understand and work in community medicine--(Bartholomew, L. K., Parcel, G. S., Kok, G., Gottlieb, N. H., & Fernandez, M. E. (2011). Planning health promotion programs: An Intervention mapping approach (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass).

But a warning: this will take as much (cerebral) work as learning about the "basic" health sciences. If you/one is not prepared to work at understanding individual and community health/behaviours, you/one should probably not be in medicine.

Hi Michael Goodstadt, Thank you for sharing. To make Community Medicine and Public Health Education interesting, the health professionals as one of the care providers must have genuine interests in the prevention of diseases and promotion of health starting as early as possible involving "healthy people". Various public health strategies should be targeting at children and adolescents. Similarly, when you intent to incorporate changes in lifestyle behavior, such as changing diet, encouraging exercise and physical activities as well as managing emotional, social, intellectual, spiritual, reproductive and environmental health, you have to be innovative and creative in order to capture target groups' maximum participation and engagement.

I find it amazing that anyone could find public health boring. It is where the rubber meets the road . It is the integration of clinical medicine, epidemiology and biostatistics in addition to all aspects of health and human behavior. Public health looks at all things that impact health not just the provision of medical care which accounts for only a small portion, I believe 10%' ,of what influences health and disease. How can that be boring?

A research career in community medicine will a very challenging one and the most rewarding career if taken with interest

I agree fully with Barbara. Community Medicine is very interesting. The problem seems to be lack of PRACTICAL teaching. It is the application of the knowledge of this subject which makes the students realize its importance and take interest

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