Interested in epidemiology/pathology-like career

[ericd8]

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[Ismet]

Nothing in your description screams "pathology" besides the fact that you'd rather not treat patients. Pathology is a diagnostic field, you won't be eradicating disease or managing disease on a population level. Also, Dr. House doesn't eradicate disease, he's a fictional diagnostician who treats individual patients with complicated diseases. Emphasis on fictional. That show borders on cringe-worthy to anyone with medical background.

Perhaps your best bet would be an MPH in epidemiology. If you're not interested in the treatment of individual patients, maybe medicine is not the right path. Epidemiologists can work in research, can work for hospitals, etc. http://mphprogramslist.com/mph-epidemiology-careers/

 

[BeancheBlanco]

I hoped the Dr. House reference would provide comic relief. Forgive me for not remembering I'm on SDN.

Anyway, after looking around it seems like a MPH is more or less the right path for my interests. However the pay for someone with only an MPH isn't too great. It also looks like you need a PhD or MD in addition to a MPH to get your foot in the door at the "big names" such as the CDC and WHO.

well doctors make more money so you should probably do that. Just treat all the patients and you could call yourself an "epidemiologist"

 

[LizzyM]

You want to do a job that doesn't pay well and then reject it because it doesn't pay well. Welcome to public service. Yes, the CDC is part of the US government and you'll be paid like someone working in government.

http://www.cdc.gov/EIS/
You can get into EIS with a MD or DO, or with a doctoral degree in public health or health sciences, etc, or as a nurse, pharmacist, veterinarian, etc with an MPH degree.
After 2 years of training, most EIS officers stay at the CDC or move on to state and local health departments.

If you want to be able to examine, interview and take samples from patients, then you will want/need an MD or DO.
If you'd rather be on the lab side of things, a DrPH or PhD may suffice.

Caring for individual patients is where the money is (although infectious disease has never been one of the best paying specialties); public health never pays well.

 

[Plecopotamus]

I'm a 4th year pre-medical/chemical engineering student. Having done research in the fields of siRNA therapeutics and nanoparticle drug delivery, I've determined that my interests aren't so much in the research and development side, rather I would like to actively work in the management of epidemics (think Centers for Disease Control) or diagnosis of disease. Moreover, I am not interested so much in the treatment of individual patients, I'm more interested in eradicating disease (think Dr. House). My end goal is to use the critical thinking/problem solving engineering mindset to manage disease on a population/demographic level rather than an individual level.

At this point I've already taken the MCAT, and I'm on track to apply to medical school after my senior year, but I'm beginning to think that medical school will put me in a position to treat patients rather than do what I described above. Also, chemical engineering and graduate school put me too far on the R&D side for my liking. Finally, a job at a place like the CDC does not pay well enough and wouldn't take advantage of the full breadth of my education.

So, SDN.. what should I do with my life?

EDIT: The management of problems such as antibiotic resistance in hospitals is also interesting to me

Find people who do what you want to do. Follow their footsteps.

Look into various graduate degrees in epidemiology, health policy, microbiology or pharmacology. If you're going to pursue an MD, infectious disease would be more logical than pathology.

 

[Sudhamsu Koirala]

I am MD pathology from Tribhuwan university teaching hospital in Nepal. I will be joining JHU this October for Mph program. Can anyone advise me any fellowship program that offers a training in cancer epidemiology to a foreign graduate without registration in us medical council