[Challenges in the educational objectives of preventive medicine and community health curriculum in undergraduate medical education].

In the world-wide context of the current innovative movements in medical education it is of importance of set up the appropriate educational objectives--general instructional objectives (GIO) and specific behavioral objectives (SBO) for the undergraduate medical curriculum for preventive medicine and community health. These educational objectives should be constantly evaluated and modified according to the curricular changes which regularly occur so as to maintain relevance. An example is the recent modification of GIOs and SBOs in the curriculum of the University of Occupational and Environmental Health. Each sentence of 7 GIOs and 35 SBOs was simplified, keeping the original meaning (former texts in JJPH 37: 241-246, 1990, initially adopted in 1988) as much as possible. Further analysis of the example was performed including the rationale of the 7 GIOs, the setting up and continued evaluation of the SBOs to meet the relevance. Based on this analysis, future challenges include elaborating the minimal expected competencies (described as GIOs and SBOs in full sentence) in the course of preventive medicine and community health such as seen in the "Objectives of the Qualifying Examinations" of the Medical Council of Canada.