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Current medical student – should I add an MPH?
- Thread starter ID12
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Fellow med student interested in dual degree MPH, so advice from a peer:
Given your career goals, I would say just go for it. I'm in the middle of conversations with MPH-trained physicians who are involved in public health projects -- they all say there's no best time, just depends on how you weigh pros/cons. IMO, it sounds like an MPH follows the "what you put in is what you get out" principle. If you can see a benefit in your career by having it, then that's that.
Personally, I'm interested in the formal education in public health via an MPH, but I'm interested in going into emergency medicine. Just don't know how to tie in the MPH with my future career just yet.
Given your career goals, I would say just go for it. I'm in the middle of conversations with MPH-trained physicians who are involved in public health projects -- they all say there's no best time, just depends on how you weigh pros/cons. IMO, it sounds like an MPH follows the "what you put in is what you get out" principle. If you can see a benefit in your career by having it, then that's that.
Personally, I'm interested in the formal education in public health via an MPH, but I'm interested in going into emergency medicine. Just don't know how to tie in the MPH with my future career just yet.
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Do it.
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I had the same choice to make about a decade ago. I did my MPH during medical school and am very glad I did. It has opened up a lot of doors for further training and research projects. You might not get the chance to do it later. The biggest negative is that I'm working on projects now that require statistical analysis-- and I am 10 years removed from the classes that would have helped me-- so it has taken a lot of work to regain skills that had become rusty. Doing an MPH later would have solved that problem-- but I am happy with how I did it.
I am a DO/MPH student. I agree with others. I think that MPH can be beneficial for your career. Personally, I am very glad that I chose to pursue a dual degree. My dream is to be involved in medical missionary organizations and hopefully work as an administrator as well. It's not just an additional degree. MPH really helped me to view the current health issues at different angles. (individual vs. population based ...etc)
I would say go for it.
I would say go for it.
