Residency
Goals and Objectives of the Program
The UCLA program endeavors to train physicians in Occupational and Environmental Medicine to meet today's needs and to be prepared for the many changes within the field in the future. Our program recognizes that there are three aspects of training, each of which is essential to the well-trained Occupational-Environmental Medicine physician: factual knowledge, experiential learning, and socialization to the field's perspective.
Accreditation
The program is fully accredited by the American Council on Graduate Medical Education.
Clinical
The graduate must be capable of providing high-quality direct patient care at the levels of primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention. Further, expertise is necessary for both the common (e.g., musculoskeletal) and the less common (e.g., toxic exposure, pneumoconiosis) problems. In the past, many programs have emphasized only the latter. But to be prepared for today's "job market", both must be addressed adequately. For that reason, our program currently includes clinical activities in a "specialty referral model" clinic as well as in an Occupational Health clinical setting providing excellent frontline clinical services. In addition, faculty members are committed to clinical medicine as part of their responsibilities.
Public Health
The trainee must be thoroughly grounded in appropriate public health methods including exposure evaluation and control, epidemiology, biostatistics, and public policy/regulation. The trainee must obtain adequate understanding of the basic science necessary for both the clinical and public health aspects; for example, understanding of mechanistic toxicology is requisite.
Managerial Expertise
Occupational-Environmental Medicine physicians must attain the ability to understand and manage health systems. The field is not practiced in isolation, but rather requires interaction of large and complex systems. Further, unlike many predominately clinical (single patient oriented) specialties, there is a particular need to design, implement, and evaluate systems for prevention and treatment. For example, occupational physicians frequently have responsibility for coordinating care and for health surveillance programs in addition to their "direct patient care". Our program recognizes this and provides explicit training in these aspects.
We believe that the residency must educate in three ways: the factual knowledge, learning by experience, and socialization to the field's perspective. In addition to learning facts and mastering specific competencies, close interaction with faculty members encourages the development of appropriate perspective. Even if residents enter from solely clinical backgrounds and enter treatment-oriented practices as their first job, they must fully appreciate the importance of public health and population-based professional practice.
Several unique factors enhance this program:
- Los Angeles itself provides excellent opportunities for learning Occupational Medicine. Industries are diverse, ranging from petrochemical and aerospace manufacturing to "high-tech" bioengineering firms. In addition, Los Angeles is a community of unique cultural diversity, granting the opportunity to learn more about the work force of today and tomorrow.
- There are strong programs in many associated disciplines such as Industrial Hygiene, Environmental Health, Occupational Health Nursing, Health Services Research, as well as numerous excellent clinical and biomedical research activities on campus.
- The Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine has benefited from long-standing activities in research, clinical service, consultation, and professional service.
- There are close affiliations with the other Public Health programs present on campus.
Components
The residency is a two-year program. The two years are a continuum, but the emphasis in each of the two years is different: In the first year, students emphasize obtaining the Masters of Public Health degree in a curriculum specifically approved for UCLA Occupational Medicine residents. The second year emphasizes the "practicum" experiences and academic activities. However, both years are integrated by common conference schedules including the two-year core curriculum, which is a series of lectures and seminars which cover central components in a two-year cycle.
Implicit and explicit factors facilitate a multidisciplinary approach to training, with extensive interaction of Occupational Medicine trainees with those in other disciplines, such as those of Primary Care Residencies, Public Health, Epidemiology, Industrial Hygiene, Occupational Health Nursing, Safety/Ergonomics, and Toxicology. During the MPH effort, trainees attend many classes in a variety of disciplines, and certain rotations (e.g., OSHA) frequently involve interaction with others. In addition, the research and consultative activities of the Division of Occupational-Environmental Medicine are frequently multidisciplinary.
Conferences
The conference schedule includes the major following categories:
- Occupational Medicine Practice with emphasis on clinically related material
- Case Conference / Problem Solving Conference
- Surveillance and Compliance which emphasizes workplace programs
- Occupational Health Systems Based Practice
- Management Skills
- "Chemical du Jour": In the latter part of the year, a particular chemical agent is reviewed each week. This series begins in the Winter Quarter.