The Mount Sinai General Preventive Medicine Residency Training Program is a two-year combined academic/practicum experience that allows the resident trainee to apply academic knowledge in real-world preventive medicine and public health contexts. Successful completion of the program includes awarding of a Master in Public Health through Mount Sinai School of Medicine of New York University. The residency program is fully accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.

The academic portion of the curriculum occupies 50 percent of the residents' time throughout the program. The course work is offered in the core areas of Behavioral Sciences; Environmental and Occupational Medicine; Epidemiology and Biostatistics; Medical Care Organization; and Public Health and Prevention. Progress in the academic phase is monitored by periodic examinations, oral presentations or written papers. In those courses where oral or written presentations are made, the content of these presentations typically derives from the resident's practicum experiences.

When not engaged academically, the resident is involved in practicum activities. These are arranged by consultation with the Program Director in accordance with the resident's learning needs and areas of interest.

A key element integrating the practicum and academic portions of the training is the Master's thesis. The thesis topics are questions motivated by the experience gained in the practicum activities, and the research reported in the thesis is usually carried out in the same practicum site that led to the posing of the question. As such, the completion of the thesis represents not merely evidence of academic mastery, but also a concrete contribution to solving the problems of a particular setting or population in which the resident has been operating.

Thus, at the end of the two-year program the resident will have achieved mastery of basic concepts in preventive medicine, and had the opportunity to apply them to a real health problem that he or she has observed firsthand and selected as an area of interest. We believe that this integrated, learner-centered approach is highly effective.