The West Virginia Occupational Safety and Health Initiative: practicum training for a new marketplace

ACOEM OEM Core Competencies: 2021

Competency is defined as possession of sufficient physical, intellectual, and behavioral qualifications to perform a task or serve in a role which adequately accomplishes a desired outcome. Recognizing the need for defining competencies essential to occupational and environmental medicine (OEM) physicians, the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine developed its first set of OEM Competencies in 1998. Later updated in 2008, and again in 2014, the increasing globalization and modernization of the workplace, along with published research on OEM practice, required an update to ensure OEM physicians stay current with the field and practice of OEM. Delineation of core competencies for the profession provides employers, government agencies, health care organizations, and other health practitioners a solid context of the role and expertise of OEM physicians.

An innovative approach to interdisciplinary occupational safety and health education

BACKGROUND

The New York and New Jersey Education and Research Center (ERC) provides a range of graduate continuing education for occupational safety and health (OSH) professionals in training. A key element of the education is to provide interdisciplinary training to industrial hygienists, ergonomists, occupational medicine physicians and other health and safety trainees to prepare them for the collaboration required to solve the complex occupational health and safety problems they will face in their careers.

METHODS

This center has developed an innovative interdisciplinary training approach that provides an historical aspect, while allowing the graduate students to identify solutions to occupational issues from a multi-disciplinary approach. The ERC developed a tour that brings students to sites of historical and/or contemporary significance in the occupational safety and health and environmental fields.

RESULTS

The ERC has conducted five tours, and has included 85 students and residents as participants. 80% of participants rated the tour as providing a high amount of OSH knowledge gained. 98% of the participants felt the goal of providing interdisciplinary education was achieved.

CONCLUSIONS

This tour has been successful in bridging the OSH fields to better understand how occupational and environmental exposures have occurred, in order to prevent future exposures so that workplace conditions and health can be improved.

Training Pathways for Occupational Medicine

OBJECTIVE

Consider the funding, organization, and applicant pool for occupational medicine residency training positions concerns in the United States.

METHODS

Postgraduate training models are compared for responsiveness to competence and workforce needs, including traditional residency, nontraditional residency, postdoctoral fellowship, extended courses, multiple certificate preparation, continuing medical education, "executive MPH," and implicit education (learning from consultants in the course of practice).

RESULTS

Educational models differ in comprehensiveness, crossdisciplinary experience, socialization to core professional values, financial requirements, accessibility to physicians currently in practice, potential number of trainees, and short- and long-term impact on training outcomes.

CONCLUSION

There are tradeoffs between the benefits of comprehensive program standards and the benefit of facilitated training access by reducing barriers or requirements. Recognizing and understanding assumptions about training in our discipline may inform future choices.

Clinical Activities in an Academic Hospital-Based Occupational Medicine Program

OBJECTIVES

The objectives of this article are to characterize the clinical activities encountered by a large academic hospital-based occupational medicine program and to discuss their implications for occupational medicine residency training and the training of practicing physicians.

METHODS

Clinical activities from July 1, 1996, to December 31, 2004, were retrieved from computerized databases and categorized. All morbidity coding was performed using the same classification scheme and resource.

RESULTS

The largest volume of clinical activities included patients seen for physical examinations, work-related injury and illness care, and substance abuse testing. The most frequently encountered workers' compensation cases were musculoskeletal.

CONCLUSIONS

Although medical surveillance examinations, toxic exposure assessments, and other specialty services were available, the demand for such services was relatively low.

A threat to the public health workforce: evidence from trends in preventive medicine certification and training

Evidence of a growing need for preventive medicine specialists is the congruence between needed competencies for practice in the current health care environment, as identified by the Council on Graduate Medical Education (COGME) and in other national reports, and the core competencies of preventive medicine residents. The total number of certified specialists in preventive medicine is 6091. The proportion of self-designated preventive medicine specialists among all U.S. physicians is on the decline and the greatest decline has been among those in public health (PH) and general preventive medicine (GPM). In addition, the total number of preventive medicine residents is on the decline, and the decline has been greatest among those training in PH and combined PH/GPM. One of the reasons for this decline has been inadequate funding due to the absence of Medicare graduate medical education (GME) financing for population-based vs. individual patient care services and meager and diminishing Title VII support. A paucity of faculty is apparent in medical schools with residency training and board certification in preventive medicine. Several actions may help reverse this trend and assure adequate numbers of preventive medicine specialists: expansion of Title VII to increase the number of residents receiving stipends and tuition, adding infrastructure support for faculty development and funding of demonstration projects in distance learning and in joint generalist/ preventive medicine residency training. Medicare GME reform should include recognition of population-based services and inclusion of preventive medicine residencies in provisions for "nonhospital-based" training and in up-weighting methodologies for primary care training. Expansion of Veterans Affairs, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and Department of Defense support is also needed as is attention to resident debt reduction.