Understanding The Interaction of Healthcare Institutions (Systems-Based Practice)
Competencies:
- Understand the institutions and individuals that participate in healthcare delivery and the role of the physician in the healthcare system.
- Appropriately use system resources and assist patients in accessing health care that is safe, effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient and equitable.
Reflection:
Efficiently and effectively delivering healthcare is vital to ensuring that all patients receive the standard they deserve in a timely fashion. However, completing this monstrous task is easier said than done and requires the cooperation of a variety of healthcare professionals across the different institutions in medicine. Paramount to achieving this cooperation is understanding the roles that our colleagues fill and when they can be utilized. During my education, I’ve become particularly interested in the role public health has played and continues to play in the development of medicine. Between my third and fourth years of medical school, I took a leave of absence to pursue my master’s in public health. While receiving my MPH I had several goals, first I wanted a different lens with which to look at my patients. One that not only considered them but also their family, their neighbors, and all others they may interact with. Now when seeing patients, I think more broadly about their care. For example, how their insurance will affect their care or how their personal insurance utilization may affect their family’s coverage. Second, I wanted to improve my research capabilities. While I’ve picked up a lot of research skills throughout undergraduate and medical school a lot of these skills were learned on the fly and at a superficial level. During my masters, I was able to gain a deeper understanding of fundamental topics such as what p-values really mean and how they’re calculated. From there I was able to build up to more advanced topics. Now when conducting research I’m able to perform a lot of my own statistics, and I’m able to recognize when I need the help of a statistician and articulate what type of calculations need to be done. Achieving MPH was a large step in advancing my understanding of medicine and where other team members can play a role but there is, of course, plenty to still learn. I plan to continue to incorporate my MPH both in my regular clinical practice and in future research endeavors. In addition to this, I hope to have the opportunity to work with other healthcare professionals that I haven’t had as much exposure to in medical school such as pharmacists, case managers, and imaging technicians.
Above is my most recent publication where I performed statistical calculations for risk ratio, odds ratio, confidence interval, p-value and more.