Volume 73 Number 2 March 2006	back to contents

Chairman, Department of Community and Preventive Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY.

Community medicine has long been a proud tradition at the Mount Sinai Hospital and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. To signal the strong commitment of Mount Sinai to community health, the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine was established in 1967 with the founding of the Medical School. The Department was designated in the School's charter as a “third faculty” co-equal in status with the basic science and clinical faculties.

Vigorous teaching in community and preventive medicine is also a strong tradition at Mount Sinai . Since the Medical School 's inception, we have taught an introductory core course in epidemiology and preventive medicine in the first year. Additionally, we have always sponsored a clerkship in either the third or the fourth year. In the early days, the clerkship consisted of community medicine field experiences, usually in East Harlem. More recently it has been combined with family medicine. We are very proud of the fact that Mount Sinai graduates have gone on to become director of the Center for Disease Control and director of CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service program, and to occupy prominent positions in health departments nationwide.

From time to time it is important to refurbish old traditions. In that spirit, the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine made the decision in the academic year 2004–2005 to introduce a new requirement for a public health essay in the first-year course in epidemiology and preventive medicine. Each student in the course was asked to write a short essay on a topic of interest in the field of public health and preventive medicine. Students were specifically instructed to first describe the problem and then to propose a remedy. Complaining without curing is never enough. Our students rose magnificently to the challenge. The range of topics considered was broad, the analytical skill impressive and the product superlative.

Choice is always difficult, but the faculty carefully reviewed the 120 essays that were submitted and chose the six that we considered to be the best. These six essays are presented here with the enthusiastic permission of their authors. We are delighted to give these outstanding students an opportunity to present their work in a peer-reviewed journal, in their first year of medical school. We congratulate them on their achievement.

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