Preventive Medicine

[richnathan]

Hey everyone, I am currently a new PGY-1 in Emergency Medicine with a strong interest in global health. I have just recently learned about Preventive Medicine which seems like it may be a better fit, however it's pretty difficult to find a lot of info about this specialty. I'm posting here to see if anyone else has any knowledge of the specialty/advice about which programs offer more opportunities for global health. Thanks!

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[Fedaykin]

We have a lot of international focus here at Tulane. A few of the departments are generalize for public health (eg, Epidemiology and Biostatistics), but some are much more specific to tropical health- Depts of Tropical Medicine, Global Environmental Health Sciences, Global Health Systems and Development have a lot of international focus. I think there might be a Preventive Medicine concentration in there somewhere- at the very least, there's a class in Preventive Tropical Medicine. Lots of overseas focus and opportunities for international fieldwork. I know friends doing work this summer in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Uganda, Peru, Mali, and Suriname. Literally everyone I know who wanted an international program this summer is in one. By the way, I'm lonely right now.

 

[Solara]

By global health, do you mean like practicing in developing countries, or global health policy (like UN/WHO affairs)?

Preventive medicine makes sense as you do a residency focused heavily on public health. You get the one strong year of clinical training (intern year), but I'm not convinced that it leaves you with solid clinical training for all 3 years. Having strong clinical training can be fairly important in global health. A lot of big global health people do internal medicine, which gives them a nice perspective of primary care. Others have done surgery, and others have done emergency medicine. As an EM you can still find plenty of opportunities. I might say IM is one of the best for getting involved in global health, particularly if you're interested in primary care.

 

[GeneRx]

Hi OP,

A lot of this depends on what you would like to do in global health. Preventive medicine is a way of getting a lot of bang for the buck in places without many. If you are hoping to provide direct patient care, preventive medicine may still be a great fit since care is often in a very low resource settings. If you want to take care of specific conditions, or patients in hospitals it might not be the best choice, but if you want to run immunization campaigns or battle malnutrition it might be the best. That said every specialty has a role and at the other extreme there are plastic surgeons doing cleft repairs and ophthalmologists doing cataract procedures, so there are many opportunities for any clinician really to be involved with global activities.

Without trying to start a flame war, I would respectfully suggest that general preventive medicine and public health is a clinical specialty and many people board certified in the specialty practice it that way. While it is true that some people aren't comfortable practicing medicine after completing a preventive medicine residency, I think it is likely that they chose the specialty because they didn't feel they wanted to practice clinical medicine, and that is an option in preventive medicine.

The bottom line is that both EM and preventive medicine are good preparation. If you are going to do more clinical training, do it because you aren't comfortable practicing, not because other people aren't comfortable.

I hope this helps.