Community Pediatrics Training Initiative
The UF Department of Pediatrics in Jacksonville is one of only ten sites nation-wide to be awarded a five-year, $1.8 million Anne E. Dyson Community Pediatrics Training Initiative grant. We have partnered with the Duval County Health Department and numerous community-based organizations in Jacksonville to provide residents with a better view of the complex issues impacting children and the interdisciplinary knowledge, skills and cultural competence required to understand and improve the health of children and families.
All residents attend a comprehensive noon-conference curriculum, developed and taught by a multi-disciplinary staff, which explores issues such as community oriented primary care, child advocacy, child rights, medical home, and international health. During the first year, residents participate in a month-long community rotation that exposes them, through practical application and hands-on experience, to community assessment, epidemiology, community resources, health promotion, disease prevention and legislative advocacy. In addition, starting mid-way through the first year, residents are expected to choose a population of children to help conduct a "Community Action Initiative." This population can be defined in a number of ways, including selecting a specific geographic area, medical condition or cultural group of children. Through direct participation, each resident will work with both a faculty and community mentor to help improve the health status of children within that selected population. Other opportunities are available to the residents as part of this Initiative, ranging from participation in our resident-run advocacy group, the Jacksonville Pediatric Advocacy Network, to select opportunities or perhaps, attending (and presenting at) local, regional and national meetings.
This pediatric initiative is truly ground breaking in its integration of an academic medical center and a department of public health to form an academic public health pediatrics program.
For further information on this training initiative, please go to www.aap.org/commpeds/CPTI/.