Abstract: Objective  Taking the social medicine course of S Medical University as an example, this paper aims to understand the teaching status of the social medicine course of clinically related majors in medical schools as well as the demand of clinical majors for online courses, and to provide ideas for the teaching reform of the social medicine course. Methods  A questionnaire survey was conducted on 225 students of clinical related majors in S Medical University by using the method of whole cluster random sampling, which included basic information, the teaching situation of the courses and the demand for online courses. Results  Eighty-three and point Seventeen percen of the students thought that it was necessary to offer the course of Social Medicine in the clinical related majors; 85.05% of the students thought that the current form of teaching could meet the demand; students thought that the course mainly had the problems of single form of lecture, lack of cases, and low interactivity. More than half of the students thought it was necessary to offer an online course on Social Medicine; students were more concerned about the content, module design and interactivity of the online course. In the ranking of the demand for acquiring resources for online courses, students believed that the resources should include teaching courseware, exercises, extracurricular extension materials, teaching videos and lectures by famous teachers. Conclusion  The curriculum design of social medicine can be optimized by integrating online and offline resources; focusing on the timeliness of teaching content and integrating the elements of big health and ideological and political education; adopting the combination of online and offline assessment methods to improve students' initiative in participating in the course; and giving full play to the function of the value of case study teaching and cultivating students to establish a holistic view of medicine and a modern medical model. Through the above ways to improve the teaching reform design of social medicine, cultivate students to establish a holistic view of medicine and health, and improve the teaching quality of social medicine courses.

Key words: social medicine, current state of teaching and learning, curriculum needs, online courses