MPH Accepted to Harvard, now having second thoughts

[ari_4]

Hey everyone,

I have been accepted at Harvard for the 1 year MPH in quantitative methods (epi/biostats) for 2016/17. I have an MD and have been working for 2 years. I chose the QM specialization because my plan was to specialize in radiology and do some research.
Being an international student, I have started my application over one year ago, because I had to apply for scholarships early. My problem is that in the meantime, my career plans have changed drastically.
I grew tired of clinical medicine and now I actually want to pursue a full-time career in public health, preferentially in a government / NGO setting, in prevention.

Now I am asking myself 3 questions, to which I have to quickly find an answer 😱:

1. Should I get this MPH at all? It seems from the job posts that I have seen, that work experience is more important than actual degrees, so maybe instead of ditching 50K for my degree I should focus on getting experience?

2. If I still decide to pursue this masters, should I change my track and what should I choose instead?

3. Maybe an in-between would be to differ for a year, but I would loose my 20K Fulbright Scholarship. My question regarding that is: does the network of Fulbright Alumni really helps for someone who wants to work in Europe after their MPH?

If someone can help me see clearer in that mess, I would appreciate it greatly! I have been agonizing over this issue for a few weeks!

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[Stories]

1.) Your MPH will aid you gaining research skills. If you want to do some research, particularly population level research, the MPH will be invaluable. If research is only a small portion of what you'd like to do, maybe just collaborating with others who have the experience would be adequate.

2.) Depends on what you want. If research skills is what you want to supplement your medical training, you're in a good spot. If you want something else out of your MPH, you should definitely switch.

3.) N/A

 

[kisekira]

I'm a public health resident physician and also in the Harvard MPH-QM program.

I assume you haven't yet entered radiology; based on what you briefly said about your new career interests, you may want to see if your country offers a similar residency program and whether or not you think those ~4-5 years of training will advance your career. Depending on what country, they might pay you salary to obtain an MPH/MSc, but if you're doing this on your own then you may get to credit it towards your training if you enter later (?)

1. How much public health experience do you already have? If little, it's going to be difficult to find positions where you'll truly develop the skills you need (or at least it'll be inefficient, and by that I mean it'll take you longer to do so); ultimately, physicians simply with an interest in public health do not contribute a heck of a lot compared to MPH/PhD/DrPH graduates. The MPH will be very helpful in getting your foot in the door and getting the didactic learning while connecting you with practica... but it is also an expensive investment if you are coming to the US for it. If you are willing to have probably lower-paying positions (compared to physician salary) just to get experience then that is an option.

2. QM is very marketable since most people lack the quantitative background, and in my opinion extremely useful for physicians working in public health. I'm not clear what exactly you want to do, but you might also consider policy (will be quite US-centric though), management, or global health. The skills they gain tend to be "fluffier"; not saying that they aren't useful or are looked down upon, but they tend to be easier to pick up simply with further work experience compared to learning the quantitative aspects, but if you don't see your future career needing much of that then it's not as important.

3. Don't know anything specific about Fulbright, but financially having only $20k funding means you'll probably foot $80k on your own for a year which is not a small sum of money. Consider if being able to call yourself a Fulbright alumni is worth it, not just from the networking perspective (i.e. how much can you leverage this achievement if you aren't heading into academia?)