Does MD/MPH programs give an advantage in matching competitive specialties?

[Icebird]

More or less thread title.

Incoming M1; I’ve been accepted to a program that has a 1+3 curriculum and has an MD/MPH option incorporated into the 4 years.

Public health and preventative medicine has been a big part of my application from undergrad and I loved the epidemiology related service projects I did during undergrad. I am interested in dermatology and there is a variety of skin cancer service projects and non-profits I’ve worked within the past years and I can continue to do so as the focus of the MPH component of the curriculum.

However, the program is more expensive and the benefit of the 3 clinical years is that there is protected research time should we chose so for the MD program; but that time gets taken up by the MD/MPH for the public health components if you pursue that path.

Would my time be better suited doing the MD/MPH vs just MD if my end goal is matching into dermatology?

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[seeinghowitgoes]

Extra degrees matter very little for residency applications - residencies are hiring a clinician and so your letters about how you are to work with, your clinical grades, etc are what matter far more. After you’ve excelled at that, they care about what you’ve done (not the degrees you had) - that is to say somebody with an MPH and no experience applying it isn’t going to be as interesting as the person who is still actively pursuing nonprofit work regardless of the degrees they have. For the person who has an application reflecting great clinical/personal skills, great extracurriculars/research, then some extra degrees may add a tiny fringe benefit but usually it’s PhDs being most “impressive.” You can look here at the residency program director survey and see extra degrees aren’t even listed as a factor program directors look at in derm, and that even research/extracurriculars are supplementary to the clinical/personal stuff.

Long story short - get the MPH if you think it’ll help you gain the knowledge base needed to do the job you want in the future. It will not likely affect your residency placement much.

(Also as an aside that you weren’t really asking for, I’m very wary of 4 year MD/MPHs. You just aren’t getting the same amount of knowledge and more importantly you’re not being given the space to fully immerse yourself in the public health mindset - the most important parts of an MPH are being around classmates and talking/thinking at a public health level and doing internships; you’re not going to get that if you do the MPH folded into the MD.)

 

[slowthai]

No, completely disregard the MPH option. Use that protected research time to go crazy on derm research.

I would say the same thing for any other highly competitive field. MPH's do not help, unless research is a major portion of it and you're able to be very productive.

 

[Icebird]

Thanks for all the responses everyone!

I think I’ll stick to just MD

 

[aafisahar]

MPH is a resume degree for people needing to get into more advanced programs (eg PhD or MD) . For an MD, the MPH is useless unless you actually want to do real epidemiology. Otherwise, you are wasting time and money, use that time to gun for derm instead if that's your cup of tea.

 

[JustOnePing]

I had an MPH before entering medical school. It's a very effective degree if one is seeking an administrative-level position at a hospital or non-profit agency (ie NRMP, AHA, CDC, etc). I feel it would augment an MD in these roles.

 

[TelemarketingEnigma]

As an MD/MPH student (p sure in the program you're referring to), I would only do it if you are really interested in public health, and not for the residency boost. I've definitely had some opportunities through the MPH part that I might not have had otherwise (or would have needed to work much harder to find), but that comes with more work and some limitations in other opportunities. I'm very glad I did it though, for less quantifiable reasons.

 

[takeurmeds02]

I'll be finishing with an MD/MPH in May and actually got asked a lot about it on the interview trail. I would do it again if I had to - it's given me a much different perspective on the healthcare infrastructure and the communities we serve. Granted it's definitely more work but part of the requirement is to do research. Why not kill two birds with one stone and fulfill your requirement by doing derm research?

It's true that you may not know what you want to do with it as you get started but as you progress through the program, you're exposed to so many niches in the field. You will at least be able to intelligently speak on how to merge your clinical work with public health passions from a more aerial viewpoint.

At the end of the day, it's not for everyone but if you're truly interested, go for it.

 

[RhesusPuffs]

There is a lot of misinformation in this thread. I matched into dermatology this year. I am also interested in epi, and I have been asked by interviews whether I have ever considered getting an MPH, or if it's in my future plans. If you have the option to do it, I would get the MPH. It will help with getting in to derm residency. Derm does take into account extra degrees, especially if you have an MD/PhD. MPH helps too.

If you have the option to both have a ton of research and also have an MPH, obviously choose that.

 

[Splenda88]

One of my classmates in med school who has an MPH from a top 10 MPH programs told us that our 7 hrs biostats class in med school covers more than 50% of what he learned in MPH school...

That did not make any sense to me. Maybe he was joking.

 

[Sephirakra]

One of my classmates in med school who has an MPH from a top 10 MPH programs told us that our 7 hrs biostats class in med school covers more than 50% of what he learned in MPH school...

That did not make any sense to me. Maybe he was joking.

Depends. I only took a couple biostats classes during my MPH, but my concentration was in a health management field. Anyone who specializes in epi or biostats will have taken far more than the basics, hopefully.

 

[~Soñadora~]

I did an MD/MPH and I second what others have said that you should only do it if you are actually interested in public health. I did it for personal interest and for personal reasons, not to be more competitive and I think I would've been disappointed if I would've done it for competitiveness alone. I don't think the MPH helped me get more prestigious interviews or anything similar. However, my MPH came up in all of my residency interviews and it was talked about extensively. The MPH didn't get my foot in the door, but it might have helped me stand out against my collegues. I ended up matching at my #1 and I talked about my MPH and public health almost exclusively throughout my interview with the PD. But I think that only works if you're actually passionate about the subject.