Residency Program: Academic Training
The two-year residency program at Stony Brook provides the academic, practicum, and clinical training required for board certification in General Preventive Medicine and Public Health. The academic training leads to a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree, which is awarded by Stony Brook University or the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, in New York City. Applicants who have an MPH or equivalent degree awarded by another approved institution also be considered for the two years of practicum training, clinical training, and didactic sessions at Stony Brook. The academic program includes core courses in biostatistics, epidemiology, health services organization and administration, environmental and occupational health, and social and behavioral sciences, with a portion of the credits towards the Columbia MPH taken at Stony Brook.
Residency courses taught by faculty in the Department of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook have been specifically designed for our residents. The course material is related to and integrated with residents’ experiences in medical school teaching as well as with field experiences. The small-group format allows residents to develop a firm foundation in the public health sciences and to become knowledgeable and adept in the application of computers to the health care field. Courses are given in clinical preventive medicine, public health law, interpersonal and communication skills, vaccinology, and applied infectious disease epidemiology. All residents also complete a course in occupational medicine and have the additional opportunity for a field experience at Stony Brook’s occupational medicine clinic. Weekly seminars provide a forum for discussion and updating of knowledge about current theory and practice in specific areas of the field and are complemented by a resident journal club, board review sessions, leadership and cultural competency sessions.
In addition to the core courses in biostatistics, epidemiology, environmental health, sociomedical sciences, and health services organization and administration, a range of elective courses are available within each of the six divisions of the Mailman School of Public Health for those completing the Columbia MPH:
- Department of Biostatistics
- Department of Environmental Health Sciences – including medical/health physics, occupational medicine, environmental or molecular epidemiology, and toxicology
- Department of Epidemiology – neuroepidemiology, psychiatric epidemiology, and cardiovascular epidemiology
- Department of Health Policy and Management – including health policy, planning, health economics, and evaluation
- The Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health – including maternal and child health and international health
- Department of Sociomedical Sciences – including health promotion and disease prevention
Elective courses are also available at Stony Brook within the Department of Preventive Medicine.
