How to Apply

Master of Public Health (MPH):

The MPH program prepares professionals for broad-based practice in public health and, for residents, further includes the integration of ACGME core competencies. Residents currently complete 42 semester hours for the MPH degree during the two-year academic program. Their area of concentration is the “Environmental Health” track. Appendix 2D contains: the MPH Handbook which provides a detailed description of the MPH program including the Practicum experience and Capstone research project; a list of required courses; and a sample resident 2 year MPH curriculum.

MPH Coursework:

Core MPH requirements (21 credit hours): Epidemiology; Biostatistics; Public Health Disease & Prevention; Occupational and Environmental Health I; Management of Public Health Organizations; Public Health Practicum; Public Health Capstone.
EH Concentration / OMR required courses (15 credit hours): Research Methods; Toxic Agents and Their Implications in Public Health; Occupational and Environmental Health II; Environmental & Occupational Epidemiology; Occupational Health Field Surveys.
Electives (6 credit hours)

In regards to the above listed coursework, the following courses are required of all CARERC students including the OM residents, and promote interdisciplinary training.

ProSeminar (CPH 617): All students funded by the CARERC are required to enroll in four semesters (only one semester for credit) of the “ProSeminar in Occupational Safety and Health” course. This course includes presentations from faculty, staff, guest lecturers, and students. Each of the disciplines within CARERC take turns providing the seminar topics. The seminars may take a variety of formats including standard research presentations, discussions with visiting scientists, study design planning conferences, journal club, laboratory demonstrations, or visits to local industries. During the one semester that students take the seminar course for credit, they present the results of their occupational research conducted for their capstone project. The course meets five times each semester for three hours (15 total contact hours).

Occupational & Environmental Health (CPH 620): This course is provided by faculty from all CARERC disciplines during each Spring semester for three semester hours credit (48 total contact hours). The course is intensive and is technically an industrial hygiene hazard evaluation and control assessment course combined with an occupational medicine course. During the first eight weeks, students focus on occupational laws; regulations; exposure criteria; evaluating aerosol, chemical, and physical agent hazards; and assessing control measures. The primary objective of the course before Spring Break is to prepare students for evaluating occupational hazards and assessing the effectiveness of control measures. The course includes rigorous homework problem sets, laboratory exercises, and examinations. The second half of the course—after Spring Break—is primarily taught by Occupational Medicine physicians. The course helps to prepare Occupational Medicine residents for the Occupational Medicine Board Examination.

Occupational Safety and Health Field Surveys (CPH 698): During each Spring Break, CARERC provides a one-week :Occupational Health Field Survey” course for three hours credit (45 total contact hours). Students across all disciplines participate in this field survey course. The course is also available to students who are not supported by CARERC and from other institutions. The field experience includes travel to industries throughout our region. The participating industries provide tours of the plant so students thoroughly learn the production process, and they work with the industry’s health and safety staff to conduct hazard evaluation and control assessment surveys of selected processes. Problem sets on the general occupational hazards within the industry are to be completed individually, but they are also divided into interdisciplinary teams of four to five students each. The teams are required to write a report describing the general plant procedures and the hazards and control measures associated with selected work tasks (hazard analysis). Each team presents the results of its assessment during the last ProSeminar meeting of the academic year. Industries that have participated in this course since 2014 include: underground coal mines; Portland cement plants; steel mills; oil refineries; the Bluegrass Army Depot (chemical weapons storage); automobile manufacturing plants; food production facilities; distilleries; farms and agricultural operations; and Oakridge National Laboratory. During the evenings after the tours, students and faculty members meet to discuss the health and safety issues associated with the workplace and the company’s approach to dealing with them and the assigned problem sets.

Clinical Rotations:

Required clinical rotation sites for all residents are focused on gaining skills and expertise in the direct care of occupational and environmental patients and of patients in specialties relevant to occupational medicine practice. Other required rotations, such as local and state health departments, are more population-based and form the basis for the “Practicum” experience described below. Objectives, faculty support/supervision, and evaluation methods are designed to be specific to each rotation within the framework of residency requirements. Firsthand experience, ongoing instruction, and progressive increases in responsibility allow multiple opportunities to meet each of the competencies. During rotations, residents are exposed to several management structures: employee/worker health at the university and community/private practice level; state and county health departments; and a large manufacturing site. For all rotation experiences, the resident is evaluated by the site preceptor and relevant staff. During many of these rotations, residents work with mid-level practitioners, nurses, safety personnel, and other support staff. Increased clinical responsibility is a focus during the residents’ progression through the program. An example of progressive rotation responsibility by way of “Goals and Objectives” is seen in Appendix 2F as is a sample two-year clinical rotation schedule for the current cohort of residents, and brief descriptions of the required clinical experiences which include:

Direct patient care in general occupational medicine clinics at the university level

UK Employee Health Services / UK Pulmonary Clinic (4 months)
UK HealthCare at Turfland, Occupational & Travel Medicine Clinic (4 months)

Direct patient care in general occupational medicine clinics at community level

Baptist Health Occupational Medicine (1 month)
Concentra Urgent Care / Occupational Medicine (2 months)

Other required clinically-based rotations

Forefront Dermatology / UK Radiology (1 month)
NIOSH-Cincinnati Health Hazard Evaluation (1 month)
UK Orthopedics / Sports Medicine (1 month).

Direct patient care and multidisciplinary safety and IH at a large industry

Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky, “TMMK” (4 months)

Public Health Practicum Rotations:

Public health practicum rotations are designed to allow the residents to implement the public health information from their coursework into practice settings and form the basis for the required “Practicum” experience described previously in Appendix 2D. Residents spend two months each at the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department (LFCHD) and Kentucky Department of Public Health (KDPH). At LFCHD, the resident receives full exposure to public health field work, including restaurant/food inspection, housing inspection, water/sewer service orientation, etc., as well as an overview of the function/administration of a large city health department. The focus of this rotation is hands-on, participatory field experiences in an active municipal public health arena. There is exposure to individual care settings in municipal specialized public health clinics, such as tuberculosis and venereal disease clinics, as well as primary care clinic for local indigent and uninsured population. Residents work closely with mid-level practitioners and other non-physician staff during the rotation. The director of the LFCHD is a voluntary faculty member, and supervises the sequence of experiences through his staff and evaluates the rotating residents. The prime focus of the KDPH rotation is state/national level, population-based medical management and program development. Opportunities vary based on which projects are active but include FDA inspections, epidemiological outbreaks, and state-level environmental laboratory functions. Residents work with one to two public health managers while participating in active programmatic development and management. The Deputy Commissioner of Public Health is the supervisor for the rotation.

Didactics and Additional Educational and Training Opportunities:

Didactic sessions are held Thursdays from 8 – 10 am in conjunction the Public Health/General Preventive Medicine residency training program with mandatory attendance for residents. These sessions provide a forum for resident and faculty interaction related to evidence-based occupational medicine practice and updates in the field. Speakers include University and outside lecturers presenting relevant topics to support ACGME Core Competencies for Preventive Medicine Residency Programs and using ACOEM’s “Guidance Statement on Occupational & Environmental Medicine Competencies - 2014”. Each year, OM residents must prepare and present a formal didactic session on an occupational medicine topic to the group. Resident-driven Journal Clubs occur once per month and are frequently attended by CPH biostatistics and epidemiology faculty. Each resident is required to prepare and present one article each per semester. Resident attendance and full participation at colleagues’ presentations is compulsory. In addition, OM residents prepare and deliver three to four “Toxicology Case Presentations” each year. The short format presentation is a review of a toxicant based upon personal involvement in actual clinical case or drawn from the literature. Residents are required to include board-review questions at the end of his/her presentation. Approximately every other month, board review sessions occur during didactics. The programs’ resident directors are present for all resident presentations. (The description for contents of didactics is found in Appendix 2G along with the most recent year’s didactic schedule.) Beginning in 2017, OM residents attended the 3 month “Anatomy Course” which is sponsored by the Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Residency and is required for that program’s trainees. This course is held October to December from 7- 9 am on Tuesdays and Fridays each year and covers such topics as detailed musculoskeletal and neuroanatomy review, musculoskeletal examination skills, introduction of ultrasound technique for injections, and more. The course schedule for this training is found in Appendix 2G. Many other required learning activities take place during the course of the two-year residency such as required completion of ATSDR’s “Case Studies in Environmental Medicine” and FEMA Modules for Risk Hazard Control & Communication, and Emergency Preparedness.

The departmental clinic (UK at Turfland, OTMC) has service contracts and consulting arrangements with many industries throughout central and eastern Kentucky. This provides opportunities for residents to accompany faculty members and participate in activities including: on-site medical consultations on a variety of occupational injuries / environmental exposures; OSHA program oversight, e.g. hearing, respirator protection; and human resource briefings. Residents may also assist in safety/medical compliance evaluations. Site visits typically include: an aerospace industry clinic (Lockheed-Martin, Blue Grass Station, KY) which focuses on maximizing employee health in the challenging environment of varied and changing physical and chemical exposures, and international travel; a large printing/binding plant (LSC Communications, Danville, KY); and a car-part manufacturing plant (Hitachi, Harrodsburg, KY). Other industries included in the recent past were: a glass fabricating plant (Corning, Harrodsburg, KY); a distillery (Jim Beam, Lawrenceberg, KY); a metal fabrication company (Gecom, Frankfort, KY); and an engineered lumber manufacturer (TrussJoist).