Abstract

Despite the fact that they will work in the field of public health after graduation, medical students receive little experience to field epidemiology. During medical school, we created a 10-week elective in field epidemiology. Students spent nine weeks in field placement sites and one week in epidemiology lectures. To assess the training, pre- and posttests were given. 34 students were enrolled in 2011 and 2012. Out of 24 candidates in a class of 280 medical students, we accepted five in 2011. From a class of 360 students in 2012, we accepted 18 of the 81 applicants, plus 11 students who merely attended the didactic sessions. The median age of the 34 students who finished the didactic sessions was 24 years, and 74% of them were men. The average pre-test score was 64%, with a range of 47 to 88. The post-test score ranged from 72 to 100% with a median of 82%. The majority of the field projects were completed successfully. Before taking this elective, six (30%) students had no idea that public health was a possible job; 56% of them thought the field experience was excellent; and 100% said it improved their grasp of epidemiology. A generally accepted method to raise medical students' understanding of public health is to include an elective in field epidemiology in their training. Published on behalf of the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health by Elsevier Ltd. The CC BY-NC-ND licence governs this open access article.