The Department of Community Medicine, located within Lahore Medical & Dental College, Lahore, serves the college as the academic home of the social, behavioral, and public health sciences. In addition to its responsibilities within the Medical School, the Department is supporting MCPS & FCPS community Medicine to post- grad Students seeking future in community medicine. Established in 2001 with a view to impart community based knowledge and skills to the undergraduate students of MBBS and BDS. the department consists of 24 full and part-time faculty, over 150 adjunct faculty with clinical or teaching appointments, 21 research assistants and associates, and 10 administrative support staff members. The department has excelled in not only providing the basic knowledge of Community Medicine but also has pioneered community based research in various fields of Public Health importance. The department regularly celebrates National and international health related events and conduct seminars on various health related issues, in which renowned speakers from various fields have been invited to share their expertise with the students and faculty. The department also has a state of art museum and a library. We have the most qualified faculty in the whole country. Our teaching methodology is problem oriented and student based. Students are evaluated at regular intervals and regular counseling is provided. Our endeavors have been rewarded with excellent results. The department collaborates with various public and private health institutions and field level organizations where students receive hands on training. The overall objective of the undergraduate medical curriculum is to Participate in the development of community based field programs to address problems through primary health care and disease control methods. Curriculum of community medicine is prepared in such a way as to prepare the students to become community oriented and thereby contributing effectively to the health care system of Pakistan. It continues through all five years of MBBS course. It includes the study and application of a wide range of social sciences, concepts of health economics, human behavior, socio-anthropology and social determinants of health and disease. The study of epidemiology, demography and bio statistics would also be introduced at appropriate stages. Special emphasis is given to the planning and management of primary health care systems and students are also involved in fieldwork under the guidance and supervision of trained staff. Opportunities are also given to the students to become familiar with the socio-economic and health conditions of sub-standard urban centers besides introducing them to the rural areas and other under developed areas of Lahore. Through such visits and surveys students are able to come in direct contact with people of these under privileged areas and are able to study in depth the structure and dynamics of communities, their socio-cultural and economic strains and their impact on the health of children and women, thereby developing a relationship of trust and mutual learning with members of the community so that the development programs are planned and implemented jointly with them. This would lead to self reliance in the community. The students are also be encouraged to participate in the preventive and curative care and management of patients and their families in the hospital’s out-patient department as well as in the primary health care field settings. In the later part of the course, the students in collaboration with the clinical departments participate in research oriented projects to evaluate the effectiveness of the primary health care systems which they helped to establish and also have the experience of practicing Family Medicine.
