Health Policy and Management, DrPH (Tsinghua)

Tsinghua DrPH Program Overview

The JHU-Tsinghua Doctor of Public Health program is a cohort-based program administered collaboratively between the Department of Health Policy and Management at Johns Hopkins University and the Institute for Hospital Management at Tsinghua University, with support from the Capital Healthcare Group. Students undertake the Healthcare Management and Leadership track within the Health Policy and Management concentration of the School-wide DrPH program. Courses for the cohort program are offered in Beijing, China and Baltimore, Maryland, with limited online coursework.

The mission of the DrPH program within the Bloomberg School of Public Health is to prepare graduates to advance the public's health through the integration and application of a broad range of knowledge and skills in leadership, practice, policy analysis, management, and professional communication, coupled with preparation in a specific public health field. 

Healthcare Management and Leadership Overview

The focus of the Healthcare Management and Leadership Track is on measuring, monitoring and improving the clinical and financial performance of health services organizations, as well as training leaders for organizational change. The track curriculum is based on the Malcolm Balridge Healthcare Criteria for Performance Excellence framework.

Concurrent MHS in Health Finance and Management Option

DrPH students currently enrolled in the JHU-Tsinghua program have the opportunity to pursue a Master of Health Science (MHS) with a focus in Health Finance and Management concurrently with their doctoral program. The administrative requirements and certifications by the faculty as set forth in the existing Policy and Procedure Memoranda apply to the doctoral degree requirements of the concurrent Doctoral/Master of Health Science program in Health Finance and Management.

Students must be accepted into the JHU-Tsinghua DrPH program within the Department of Health Policy and Management. With the program's approval, the student may submit an application to the concurrent Master of Health Science program in Health Finance and Management.

Core course requirements consist of successful (graded) completion of the core courses: these classes should be taken over the course of the student's first two or three years in the DrPH program. Sixty-four total credits of coursework are required.

Additionally, students must successfully pass the written comprehensive examination. Upon satisfactory completion of these requirements, the student is eligible for award of the Master of Health Science in Health Science in Health Finance and Management degree.  The MHS degree must be completed prior to the completion of the DrPH.

Should a student not complete the DrPH degree, the MHS degree may be awarded. Students must complete all of the core course requirements, and a final graded paper. The degree will be awarded upon the recommendation of the Department.

Program Administration

Program Director: Leiyu Shi, DrPH, MBA, MPA
Director, HPM Office of Academic Affairs: Judith Holzer, MBA
Senior Academic Program Coordinator: Mary Sewell

Tsinghua DrPH Program Requirements

Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.

Cohort Course Requirements

Students will follow the cohort plan developed by the program administration each year.  Students are expected to complete course requirements with their cohort.  

Year 1

Course List

Code	Title	Credits
Taken Prior to Matriculation
PH.550.860	Academic & Research Ethics at JHSPH
XXX.XXX	Introduction to Online Learning
XXX.XXX	Title IX & Sexual Harassment Prevention Training for Students
Taken After Matriculation
PH.180.601	Environmental Health	5
PH.309.620	Managed Care and Health insurance	3
PH.309.712	Assessing Health Status and Patient Outcomes	3
PH.311.865	Tsinghua DRPH Seminar	1
PH.312.600	Managing Health Services Organizations	4
PH.312.603	Fundamentals of Budgeting and Financial Management	3
PH.312.610	Foundations of Organizational Leadership	3
PH.312.621	Strategic Planning	3
PH.312.635	Human Resources in Health Organizations	2
PH.550.630	Public Health Biology	3
Total Credits		30

Year 2

Course List

Code	Title	Credits
PH.340.601	Principles of Epidemiology	5
PH.312.670	Negotiation in Health Care Settings	3
PH.312.623	Financial Management in Health Care I	3
PH.312.620	Performance Measurement in Health Care	2
PH.311.865	Tsinghua DRPH Seminar	1
PH.140.611	Statistical Reasoning in Public Health I	3
PH.140.612	Statistical Reasoning in Public Health II	3
PH.140.613	Data Analysis Workshop I	2
PH.140.614	Data Analysis Workshop II	2
PH.300.651	Introduction to the U.S. Healthcare System	4
PH.309.616	Introduction to Methods for Health Services Research and Evaluation I	2
PH.309.617	Introduction to Methods for Health Services Research and Evaluation II	2
PH.312.617	Fundamentals of Financial Accounting	3
PH.312.633	Health Management Information Systems	3
PH.313.641	Introduction to Health Economics	3
PH.306.663	Legal and Ethical Issues in Health Services Management	3
Total Credits		44

Year 3

Course List

Code	Title	Credits
PH.140.620	Advanced Data Analysis Workshop	2
PH.300.600	Introduction to Health Policy	4
PH.309.730	Patient Safety and Medical Errors	3
PH.309.750	Applied Research Methods for Health Policy and Management	3
PH.311.615	Quality of Medical Care	3
PH.311.867	Tsinghua Graduate Seminar	1
PH.311.720	Tsinghua DRPH Capstone	2
PH.312.607	Quantitative Tools for Managers in Asia	3
PH.312.624	Financial Management in Health Care II	3
PH.312.660	Marketing in Health Care Organizations	3
PH.313.790	Introduction to Economic Evaluation	3
PH.313.793	Extended Exercises in Cost Effectiveness	2
PH.340.620	Principles of Clinical Epidemiology	2
PH.410.620	Program Planning for Health Behavior Change	3
Total Credits		37

Year 4

Course List

Code	Title	Credits
PH.300.840	Special Studies and Research in HPM	4
PH.311.840	HPM DrPH Qualifying Exams	3
Total Credits		7

Year 5 And Beyond

Course List

Code	Title	Credits
PH.311.820	Thesis Research HPM-DRPH	4
For each year beyond the 5th, DrPH students must maintain 4 credits of Thesis Research until graduation.
Total Credits		4

Registration Requirement

By design, the JHU-Tsinghua DrPH program in HPM is part-time. All students must be continuously registered for at least one credit per term for the duration of the program. Students who are not able to participate in coursework or dissertation research work during a registration term must request an official leave from the program.

Students may request leave for up to 8 terms (2 years) over the entire duration of their program.

Qualifying Exam

JHU-Tsinghua DrPH students became eligible for the Department Qualifying Exam at the conclusion of Year 3. The exam consists of a case study identified by the exam committee for the exam period.

The exam is offered in July. Students receiving a grade of "conditional pass" or "fail" will be eligible for a retake at the discretion of the exam committee.

DrPH Practicum Requirement

JHU-Tsinghua DrPH students are required to complete a practicum. The purpose of the DrPH practicum is to further the development of high-level competencies and, in particular, applied competencies and critical thinking relevant to the student's area of specialization. The practicum should form an integral part of the student learning, complementing course work, special studies and student dissertations in a way that responds to student learning objectives.

Minimum Practicum requirements

• Applies and further develops public health skills and competencies - the objectives of the student practicum should be clearly identified as part of an integrated, individualized, academic plan that is approved in advance of the practicum. Students will identify competency domains in which they wish to achieve high-level skills and the DrPH student practicum presents an important opportunity for the application of these skills.
• Is framed and carried out in a public health context - the practicum will include population-level activities carried out at, or in collaboration with, an organization or agency. Students should not merely crunch numbers or administer surveys, but should be engaged in the larger public health context of their activities.
• Is supervised and supported - The practicum preceptor will be qualified to evaluate the student's professional competence and will supervise the student throughout the project. The preceptor will typically be from an outside organization (i.e., community-based organization, health department, private corporation, etc.), but can be a JHSPH faculty member if appropriate. The preceptor will provide background information, directions, feedback, and guidance with regards to the student progress on well-defined learning objectives. The faculty adviser will be kept informed of the student's practicum activities and progress and may provide additional assistance if warranted.
• Is significant - The practicum should be more than an opportunity for additional work experience given the significant work experience already held by DrPH students. Practicum projects should make a significant contribution to the organization with which the student is collaborating, as well as constituting a significant investment of student time and effort. There is no minimum number of hours required, but it is estimated that the typical DrPH student may spend a minimum of 100 hours on practicum projects. Student practica may take the form of one significant large project or several smaller practica experiences. DrPH student practica do not need to be individual projects, students may work independently but may also be part of a student team, or a team composed of other members of the organization with which they are collaborating. If students are members of a broader team, then their role on the team should be clearly defined.
• Is evaluated - Students will be evaluated on achievement of defined learning objectives and deliverables by the preceptor. Faculty advisers will be informed and have an opportunity to provide feedback on the student's progress if they choose to do so. As part of the practicum experience students will reflect on and evaluate their overall practicum experiences, particularly as they related to their career goals. Clearly identified outputs from the practicum experience (not necessarily written products, but oral presentations or a new management or information system) should be identified in advance.

The DrPH practicum is designed to be flexible, and to respond to individual students' prioritized learning needs. The practicum should be an important part of the program for all DrPH students.

Mentoring/Approval of Preceptor

All preceptors must be approved by JHSPH prior to the start of the practicum. Current JHSPH faculty may act as preceptors where this is appropriate, for example where the faculty member is engaged in collaborative work with an outside agency. Many other individuals working in relevant practice positions will already have an adjunct position at the school, and thus are "pre-approved" as preceptors. Where the preceptor does not have any faculty position at the School, their CV will be submitted to the Program Director along with the practicum proposal for approval.

Documentation and Evaluation

• When a student wishes to proceed with a practicum opportunity, they will complete a short practicum proposal form that outlines the nature of the project, how it fits with their learning objectives, the location of the practicum, the preceptor, a time frame for the work and outputs. After discussion with the student's adviser, the form will be submitted to the department to be included in their student file.
• At the end of the practicum, the student and the preceptor will complete the practicum summary form. The summary will reflect on the experience and lessons learned and will provide constructive feedback to the student. Final outputs from the project should be attached to the form and these should all be submitted to the Department.
• When a student present for his or her final oral examination, evidence of completion of the practicum requirement will be submitted as part of the student's final paperwork.

Questions related to the DrPH practicum should be directed to Dr. Leiyu Shi or Judith Holzer.

Student Progress Reports

The Department of Health Policy and Management is committed to assisting students with steady progress through the completion of the DrPH program. To facilitate this process, all students are required to submit regular progress reports to the HPM Office of Academic Affairs.

Beginning in Year 4, after successful completion of the written qualifying exams, students must submit a progress report on December 1st and June 1st each year until they have passed their School-wide Preliminary Oral Exam. The report must be reviewed, discussed and approved by the student's adviser prior to submission. Approximately six weeks prior to the due date, a reminder e-mail will be sent by the HPM Office of Academic Affairs.

Once a student has passed their School-wide Preliminary Oral Exam, a yearly progress report is to be submitted to the HPM Office of Academic Affairs until the program is complete. The progress report, along with the approved summary report of the Dissertation Advisory Committee Meeting (see below), will be due each year on June 1. The report must be reviewed and discussed with the student's adviser prior to submission. Approximately six weeks prior to the deadline, a reminder e-mail will be sent by the HPM Office of Academic Affairs. 

Departmental Preliminary Oral Exam

The Departmental Preliminary Oral Exam takes place before the student takes the School-wide Preliminary Oral Exam. The Departmental Exam may not take place until after the successful completion of the Departmental Qualifying Exam. The format of the exam is similar to the School-wide Preliminary Oral Exam and is intended to determine if the student is academically prepared to pass the School-wide Preliminary Oral Exam and to carry out independent dissertation research.

The exam requires the student to prepare a dissertation proposal that will be examined by the committee members. This proposal is approximately 30 pages in length and provides the committee with the student's basic hypothesis to be research or program to be evaluated or work-place challenge to be addressed.

The HPM Departmental Preliminary Oral Exam committee consists of a minimum of three faculty members; one must be the student's adviser. A fourth alternate committee member should be identified and may choose to participate in the exam.

School-wide Preliminary Oral Exam

The School-wide Preliminary Oral Exam takes place after the student has successfully completed the Departmental Qualifying Exam and the Departmental Preliminary Oral Exam. The purpose of this examination is to determine whether the student has both the ability and knowledge to undertake significant research in their general area of interest.

The examiners will be concerned with the student's capacity for logical thinking, breadth and depth of knowledge in public health and evaluate methodologies, and ability to undertake a project aimed at addressing a significant public health problem leading to a completed dissertation. While the specific proposal serves as a vehicle for determining the student's general knowledge and research capacity, this examination is not intended to be a defense of a specific proposal. The student will be expected to defend the public health significance of the proposal as well as the methodologies used to evaluate the problem.

The examination should be taken at the earliest feasible time, before significant engagement in dissertation research. If the student fails the Preliminary Oral Examination and is permitted a re-examination, they must be re-examined within one year. The School-wide Preliminary Oral must be scheduled at least one month in advance but not until the departmental oral has been successfully passed.

Special Exam Regulations

Non-US, part-time DrPH students, living outside of the United States, may take the Departmental Preliminary Oral Exam and the School-wide Preliminary Oral Exam via Zoom. Students will work with staff in the HPM Office of Academic Affairs regarding the logistics for each exam.  

Thesis Advisory Committee

Within three months of passing the School-wide Preliminary Oral Exam, every DrPH student must identify a thesis advisory committee. This committee, consisting of the student's adviser and at least two other faculty members from either inside or outside the Department, will meet with the student at minimum once a year until the student has graduated to evaluate the student's work and progress.

Each student is required to submit a written summary report to the Thesis Advisory Committee prior to the committee's meeting. This approved summary report will be submitted to the Department each June with the annual progress report (see above).

Thesis Guidelines

All students must complete an original investigation presented in the form of a thesis. The thesis must be based on original research, worthy of publication, and acceptable to the Department of Health Policy and Management and to a committee of faculty readers. During the student's application process, various research ideas may have been discussed with faculty members. However, each student's thesis proposal must be developed, reviewed and found acceptable to departmental faculty while enrolled as a doctoral student at the BSPH.

DrPH students in HPM have options for the format of the thesis. These options are described below:

• The traditional doctoral thesis consists of a statement of the problem and specific aims; a literature review; data and research methods; analyses and results; and a discussion of findings and their implications. The form these take will reflect the specific academic discipline or orientation guiding the student's research.
• The manuscript-oriented thesis is an alternative to the traditional dissertation. The manuscript thesis consists of a total of three (or more) papers, linked to the student's research topic.
• The workplace challenge requires the selection of one organization or a combination of several organizations to complete a series of five practice-based projects.

The decision on which format to follow should be made by the time the student takes the departmental preliminary oral examination. There are advantages and disadvantages to each option that should be carefully discussed with the student's adviser. If a decision is made during the thesis writing stage to change the format of the thesis, all members of the thesis advisory committee and/or the thesis readers committee should be informed.

Each of these options is described briefly below:

Option 1: The Traditional Doctoral Thesis

The traditional doctoral thesis generally consists of an abstract, five chapters, references, and any appendices.  The outline of chapters below is merely a guide.  The pages numbers are rough estimates, and the form of the chapters will vary, reflecting the academic discipline or orientation of the student’s research.

Abstract: The abstract is a short overall summary of the work.  It lays out the purpose(s) and aims of the study, the methods, and the key results and implications.  The abstract generally is 2-3 double spaced pages.

Chapter 1: Introduction:  Statement of the problem and specific aims; This chapter, which tends to be relatively short (5-6 double spaced pages), provides an introduction to the thesis.  It describes briefly why this work was undertaken, what background conditions or data suggested it was an important problem, and what, then, this project was intended to accomplish. 

Chapter 2: Literature Review.  The literature review summarizes existing literature that informed the thesis research.  It generally is organized topically.  The literature review tends to be a fairly detailed review, particularly for those topics most directly related to the content and methods of the thesis.  The literature review tends to be 30-60 pages in length.

Chapter 3: Methods.  The content of the methods chapter varies tremendously with the methodological approach taken by the student for the thesis research.  With traditional empirical studies, it will generally include the specific aims, research questions, and/or hypothesis; a description of the source of study data, a description of the study instrument and its development, if relevant; a description of secondary data obtained, if relevant; analytic methods, including data cleaning, creation of a data set, creation of variables and/or qualitative codes, types of analyses done; and human subjects issues.  The methods chapter ranges from 20-40 pages.

Chapter 4: Results: The results chapter reports the main findings of the thesis.  It often is organized by research question or specific aim or hypothesis, but need not necessarily follow this format.  The results chapter ranges from 25-50 pages.

Chapter 5: Discussion of results and policy implications.  The discussion chapter both summarizes key findings and discusses findings in light of existing literature and in light of their policy implications.  Also included generally are a description of the study’s limitations and implications for future research.  The discussion chapter is generally 25-50 pages.

References: A listing of all citations used for the thesis must be provided.  The Department allows any standard format for references.

Appendices: Appendices can be used for many purposes.  They can include study instruments, if relevant; they can include additional tables not included in the main body of the thesis; also to be included must be a copy of the student’s CV.  The traditional thesis should be able to “stand alone” without appendices, however, so results should never be put in appendices that are key to the study’s main findings.

Option 2:  The Manuscript Thesis

The manuscript thesis consists of the following:

▪ a total of three (or more) papers, linked to the student’s thesis topic.  One of these papers may be a literature review, providing a comprehensive critical review only if it would advance the field and would be suitable for publication.

▪  the thesis as a whole must somewhere address the implications for policy and practice.  This may be significantly addressed through one or more of the manuscripts or could instead be addressed in a chapter that integrates and discusses the findings reported in the manuscripts. 

▪ an appendix outlining in detail the study methods and any accompanying data tables necessary to fully understand the data.

A manuscript-oriented thesis must also meet the following criteria: 

(1) The doctoral student must be the first author on the three manuscripts used to satisfy this requirement;

(2) No manuscript will be accepted as part of the thesis if it was submitted for publication before the student passes the school-wide preliminary oral exam;

(3) At least two members of the thesis committee must not be co-authors of any of the manuscripts to avoid conflict of interest if published prior to the final defense. 

Option 3: The “Work Place Challenge” Thesis

Students are required to select either ONE organization or a combination of SEVERAL organizations and complete a series of five practice-based projects outlined below:

Organizational Assessment of an entire organization, large department, or program.  This assessment should use a systematic framework (e.g., Baldrige framework, balanced scorecard approach, European Excellence framework, Abu Dhabi Award for Excellence in Government Performance), and is expected to examine the mission or purpose of the organization, its stakeholders, its internal processes, and its performance. The assessment should include a list of areas for further improvement.  Please use the perspective of an “outside” consultant for completing this project.

Plan for a New Program or Service to address a workplace need.  The plan must include a focused needs assessment, review of relevant literature, program design, implementation plan, evaluation plan and proposed budget with detailed justification.

Program Evaluation.  The program evaluation should include a program description, rationale for how the program should have an impact (the “program logic”), review of relevant literature, evaluation design (e.g., before/after with comparison group), measurement of process and outcome indicators, data analysis, discussion of possible threats to the reliability and validity of evaluation results, and implications for program management.  Qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methodologies may be used.  In addition to the evaluation results, please discuss the potential generalizability of your findings for other organizations, as well as possible policy implications.

Economic Evaluation.  This section should include a description of the program, project, or service under analysis, a review of the relevant literature, and a cost-benefit analysis, cost effectiveness analysis, equity analysis, return on investment analysis, or other type of cost-consequence analysis.  The analysis should include both the societal perspective and the perspective of the organization being analyzed.  Implications for program management and policy, as well as the potential generalizability of analysis results, should also be addressed.

Discussion of Implications. This section summarizes the lessons learned through the ‘workplace challenge’ experience, identifies opportunities for improvement from the perspectives of relevant stakeholders, and draws implications for other similar programs or organizations.  Please address the role that leadership played or could have played with regard to the projects and/or outcomes observed.  For example, what was done and could have been done to enhance, assure, foster or mitigate the outcomes observed.

Role of the Faculty Adviser

The adviser's role is to facilitate successful completion of the doctoral thesis. The type of assistance provided should be tailored to the individual student's needs.  The thesis must reflect work that is the student’s independent and original work.  The adviser should provide ongoing and critical feedback, but the research must be that of the student.

Maintaining this balance may be particularly challenging for manuscript-oriented and “workplace challenge” theses.  Even if the adviser (or another committee member) will be a co-author on a manuscript, the manuscripts must be viewed first and foremost as fulfilling the student's needs in the thesis process, with publication as a secondary goal.  Advisers or other committee members who are co-authors may not undertake the first draft of any portions of the manuscripts nor substantial re-writes.  Whether an adviser will be a co-author on any manuscript should be decided early in the thesis process.

Thesis Approval

Doctoral advisers must provide official approval of the final draft of a student's thesis prior to dissemination to the other members of the Thesis Readers/Final Oral Examination committee. A signed Thesis Approval Form must accompany each copy of the thesis distributed.  

Final Public Seminar of Thesis

A formal, public seminar and closed oral defense of the thesis before a committee of the faculty is one of the final steps for a DrPH candidate. The public seminar and oral thesis defense are typically held on the same day with the seminar being conducted first, followed immediately by the closed defense before the approved final exam committee.

It is expected that the public seminar will last approximately 45 minutes and the closed defense, approximately 90 minutes. Members of the final examination committee are required to attend both the seminar and the closed defense. 

The Final Oral Examination Committee judges all components of the thesis to be either: Acceptable, Acceptable with Revisions, or Unacceptable. This is the case for both the traditional thesis and a manuscript-oriented thesis. Students, with guidance from their adviser, will rework their thesis until all components are judged Acceptable.

Taking the Final Oral Exam and receiving an unconditional pass does not release the student from further responsibilities to complete the degree requirements. All students must stay continually registered until the degree requirements have been completed, including the thesis acceptance letters and electronic submission of the thesis to the Welch Medical Library. Once everything is submitted, the student will be reported to the Committee on Academic Standards and be considered complete.

Tsinghua DrPH Program Policies

Program Prerequisites

Students entering the DrPH in Healthcare Management and Leadership are expected to have taken the following prerequisite courses during their previous Master's program. Students who have not met the prerequisite will need to complete these courses while enrolled in the DrPH program. These courses are incorporated into the 3-year didactic course plan presented for the students enrolled in the JHU-Tsinghua cohort program.

Students who have completed the prerequisite courses may request a waiver provided they meet the waiver requirement described below. Students who waive courses may not be eligible for the concurrent MHS degree. The maximum number of credits that may be waived is 45.

School-wide DrPH Prerequisite Courses

Course List

Code	Title	Credits
PH.180.601	Environmental Health	5
PH.140.611	Statistical Reasoning in Public Health I	3
PH.140.612	Statistical Reasoning in Public Health II	3
PH.300.600	Introduction to Health Policy	4
PH.340.601	Principles of Epidemiology	5
PH.410.620	Program Planning for Health Behavior Change	3
PH.550.630	Public Health Biology	3

Healthcare Management and Leadership Prerequisite Courses

Course List

Code	Title	Credits
PH.300.651	Introduction to the U.S. Healthcare System	4
PH.312.600	Managing Health Services Organizations	4

HPM DrPH Advising Policy

All DrPH students will work with the Program Director, who will serve as the initial faculty during the coursework portion of the program. After the successful completion of the written qualifying exam and once the student has identified their proposed dissertation area, a dissertation advisor will be identified to mentor the student on the content-specific work.

The following guidelines have been developed to make clear the advising expectations for both faculty and students.

Expectations, Rights, and Responsibilities

Students can expect their advisor to work with them in defining educational goals, course work and independent studies that will assist in achieving their goals. In addition, the advisor periodically will review academic progress with the student, including assessing the student's strengths and weaknesses. Advisors provide advice while students must make the final choices consistent with the guidelines and policies of the Department, School, and Johns Hopkins University.

Students are responsible for scheduling regular meetings with their advisors, in-person or by telephone, to discuss goals, progress, problems, and next steps. If an advisor does not know the answer to the specific questions or issues, the advisor will refer the student to knowledgeable sources. Advisors are expected to make a regular time available for student/advisor meetings or have a clearly stated process by which students can schedule time to meet individually. Students have the right to change advisors and individual faculty members have the right to accept or not accept any specific student as an advisee. The first step in the process for changing advisors is to consult the program director.

Minimum Expectations for Student-Advisor Meetings

The following are minimum expectations for scheduled meetings between a faculty advisor and advisee. In general, meetings should be scheduled so students can prepare for the meeting, should be at least a half-hour in duration or more if needed, and should be conducted in an appropriate location, desirably without interruptions.

Degree	Time in Program	Minimum Meeting Frequency
Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) Part-time	Year 1-3 (coursework)	Meeting at least once a year until departmental qualifying exams
	Year 3 to preliminary oral	One meeting every academic term
	During dissertation research	One meeting each academic term; written comments on dissertation drafts within 4 weeks of receipt

Standards of Academic Performance

Students must meet minimum academic standards to remain in the DrPH program in the Department. A student's failure to meet any of the criteria below is grounds for being placed on academic warning and/or being dismissed from the program.

To remain in good academic standing in the Tsinghua DrPH program, students must:

• Maintain a minimum cumulative grade point average (GPA) of 3.0. Students with a GPA falling below a 3.0 will be placed on academic warning and will have one term of registration in which to raise their cumulative GPA above the 3.0 threshold. Students not meeting the minimum GPA after one term may be granted additional term(s) on academic warning if academic progress has been shown in the cumulative GPA; approval beyond one term must be reported to the School's Committee on Academic Standards. Students on academic warning must meet with their academic advisor and program director each term to review their academic plan and receive approval for their course schedule prior to registering for courses.
• Must earn a minimum grade on all required program-specific core courses of "B" or higher in courses offered for letter grading and a "Pass" for courses only on a pass/fail basis.
• Not accrue more than 6 credits of "incomplete" coursework at any given time. Students exceeding this limit must immediately e-mail the program director in writing to discuss their academic situation and registration for subsequent terms until the in-completes have been resolved.

Any student enrolled in the DrPH program that does not obtain the minimum 3.0 GPA by the end of the coursework phase of the program will not be permitted to proceed to the written qualifying exam. In this situation, the program director, in consultation with the HPM APAC's Student Matters Subcommittee, will determine the appropriate course of action.

Course Waivers

Students may choose to request a course waiver if they feel that the material is sufficiently duplicative to coursework completed in a prior master's program. The following criteria must be met for a waiver request to be considered:

• Completed within the last 5 years
• Taught in English
• Grade received of "B" or higher

All waiver requests will be reviewed by both the DrPH program directors as well as the instructor for the relevant individual course to be waived. No more than 45 credits can be waived.

In order to request a waiver, the following procedures must be followed:

• The student must present a written request to the DrPH program office in Baltimore, care of Judith Holzer. The written request must include:
  • Written justification from the student, explaining how the content is repetitive of material already taken
  • A copy of the course syllabus and transcript showing the grade received.
• The decision on the waiver request will be communicated in writing to the student.

Students who want to waive the Epidemiology and/or Biostatistics courses will follow a different process, completing a waiver exam. This exam may be taken during the February sessions in Baltimore. Please see Dr. Shi or Judith Holzer for further information.

Tsinghua DrPH Learning Outcomes

Program Competencies

The competencies for the track in Healthcare Management and Leadership are met through required and elective coursework, a practicum, independent research, and the process of writing a dissertation. Upon successful completion of the program, students will have mastered the following competencies; specifically, students will have the ability to:

• Identify, synthesize and apply evidence-based public health research and theory from a broad range of disciplines and health-related data sources for problem solving and to advance programs, policies, and systems promoting population health.
• Identify and analyze ethical issues including balancing the claims of personal liberty with the responsibility to protect and improve the health of the population; and act on the ethical concepts of social justice and human rights in public health research and practice.
• Influence decision-making regarding policies and practices that advance public health using scientific knowledge, analysis, communication and consensus building.
• Assess and use communication strategies across diverse audiences to inform and influence individual, organization, community and policy actions in order to promote the health of the public.
• Enable organizations and communities to create, communicate and apply shared visions, missions and values; inspire trust and motivate others; build capacity; improve performance; enhance the quality of the working environment; and use evidence-based strategies to enhance essential public health services.
• Provide fiscally responsible, strategic, and operational guidance within both public and private health organizations, for achieving individual and community health and wellness.
• Apply organizational theory and interpret its relation to professional practice as it contributes to the development, implementation, and monitoring of organizational performance standards while promoting team learning and organizational learning.
• Identify and apply concepts and methods for measurement, monitoring and improvement of the clinical and financial performance of health services organizations, as well as train leaders for organizational change initiatives.
• Utilize strategic assessment and planning skills to identify internal and external issues that may impact delivery of essential public health services and apply facilitation skills to ensure the participation of key internal and external organizational stakeholders.