Public Health and Preventive Medicine Electives

Please find below the Public Health and Preventive Medicine electives that are available to Medical students

Lower Mainland

Public Health and Preventive Medicine – Vancouver/Richmond/North Vancouver

This elective provides students with experience working in one of three urban public health offices of a health authority servicing the third largest Canadian metropolitan area. Students will be provided with an orientation to public health programs and services. They will also support public health activities in areas such as communicable disease control, immunization and environmental health and be responsible for a written project of mutual interest. They may also work with medical health officers on projects involving disease surveillance, non-communicable disease control, population health, health promotion, community development, health planning, program or policy development and evaluation or in providing consultation to health professionals in the community.

Public Health and Preventive Medicine – Fraser Health Surrey

The elective will allow students to explore core public health functions in a health authority setting. Students will be supervised by a Medical Health Officer and interact with a variety of public health staff and community partners (ex. municipal staff, school districts). Experiences can include, for example, accompanying Environmental Health Officers on a variety of inspections (ex. Food premises); learning from Public Health Nurses at immunization clinics and sexual health clinics, dental hygienists on childhood oral health, Community Health Specialists on community development; and, assisting epidemiological staff on health status assessment and surveillance.

Public Health & Preventive Medicine – Environmental Health – BC Centre for Disease Control

This elective gives students and residents exposure to Environmental Health components of Public Health. This could include responding to environmental emergencies (extreme heat or smoke, radiation, or spills), assessing risk of toxic exposures, and reviewing surveillance of environmental exposures. It may also include developing or reviewing policies and procedures related to environmental health in BC or participating in research related to environmental health. Though this elective does not include front line patient care, it may include consulting with physicians to manage and investigate individuals or clusters of individuals with exposure to environmental toxins.

Public Health & Preventive Medicine – HIV and Marginalized Inner-City Populations – St Paul’s

This elective will introduce students to examining HIV from a population health perspective. It will provide students with exposure to the basic activities of a public health physician, including population health assessments, disease surveillance, health promotion, disease prevention, health protection and clinical care. Students will also obtain some clinical experience in primary care of HIV-infected individuals. The elective will allow students to gain a comprehensive understanding of HIV and approaches to prevention and treatment in BC.

Interior

Public Health & Preventive Medicine – Interior Health – Kelowna

The Office of the Medical Health Officer is responsible for monitoring, protecting and improving the health of the population within the Interior Health region. Our Medical Health Officers (MHOs) are legally mandated to provide independent consultation and direction under the BC Public Health Act to protect the health of the communities. The Office works in collaboration with public health programs to promote health, prevent disease, injury, disability and death, to reduce health inequities, and to protect the public from environmental and other risks to health and to promote wellness. In this elective you may be assigned to a preceptor in various communities. This medical student rotation in public and population health will enable the student to learn how to assess and support the health, wellness and safety of diverse populations, for example, urban and rural, aboriginal, children and youth, as contrasted with individuals in clinics or hospitals.

Find more Information

If you are a UBC Medical student, please consider applying for a Public Health and Preventive Medicine elective during the Elective lottery. If you have any questions, please reach out to ubc.electives@ubc.ca

If you are a final year medical student from a Canadian University, please learn more on how to apply here. Alternatively, please contact the Visiting Student Office at visiting.electives@ubc.ca for more information.