Primary Care and Health Services Research

The goal of the Health Services Research elective is to provide an opportunity for medical students to explore, through inquiry, an area such as access to, and the use, costs, quality, delivery, organization, financing, and/or outcomes of health care services for individuals and populations. Student must identify a GW faculty advisor and arrange their own research experience and obtain approval by the elective director. If working with an advisor outside of GW faculty, this must be approved by the GW elective director who will ultimately assign the overall grade with input from the advisor.

Course Learning Objectives:

By the end of this course, the student should be able to:

1. Describe the fundamentals of health services issues.
2. Generate patient-centered question(s) to drive knowledge acquisition when designing a health services research project.
3. Apply sound methodology and analysis.
4. Demonstrate scientific writing skills through an internal report and, ideally, peer-reviewed submission.