Patrick Dideum, MD

General Preventive Medicine  |  Johns Hopkins University

Preventive Medicine residency brings the opportunity to bring my early career of database administration and data analysis with my current career as an Air Force pediatrician. Through pursuit of the Public Health Informatics certificate, I want to hone my previous information systems training with my medical training to develop, deploy, test, and monitor data-driven solutions to positively affect the health of populations.

I pursued a rotation at AHRQ to gain experience at a federal, non-military agency and understand the roles of the many other agencies under the Department of Health and Human Services. As one of these agencies, AHRQ provided a superb environment to understand how evidence-based recommendations are generated starting with thoughtful research plans through final recommendations. I was able to observe the operations of several subcommittees working to refine the USPSTF approaches and methodologies which furthered my appreciation and understanding of the recommendation process. I plan to use this experience to guide my future Preventive Medicine practice and will be an advocate for the efforts within AHRQ and a promoter of USPSTF recommendations.