Environmental policy and/or integrative medicine at med schools?

[greendoc]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Hi,

Anyone else interested in linking environmental advocacy to medical work, or in research integrating alternative systems of medicine with biomedicine? Anybody already doing this?

I worked with non-profits in India for two years after college, studying Ayurveda and other Indian systems of medicine as public health solutions. Now I'm going to med school this fall and am trying to narrow down my choices. I can look at enviro and/or integrative med departments at the diff schools, but I know there's a lot of contextual stuff I just can't know until I start the work, so I'm looking for general advice and thoughts on the field.

I'm thinking of a joint master's degree in history and philosophy of science, and/or in environmental policy--anyone doing/wanting to do this type thing and have any feedback? These don't seem like super-common plans these days--on the interview circuit I didn't meet people going this route. I don't know anyone else with these goals, so any experience/ideas you can offer could really help me out. Or even just a shout out from other people with these interests would be great.

Good luck to everyone as we deal with this sometimes rejecty waitlisty time...take care, all.

 

[greendoc]

sad

 

[sheepunite]

sad

university of michigan used to run an environmental/occupational medicine residency (now defunct). i don't personally know of any programs that integrate their medical training with environmental policy/health, but you could easily take a year to pick up your MPH in environmental health.

 

[prana_md]

hey there. I'm looking at doing an MD/MPH and at different schools there are different specialties withing the MPH that might be what you're looking for.

If you want to see the most amazing spread of MPH "majors", you should check out Tulane's School of Public Health. They have a bunch of environmental health focuses, plus global health ones like "global environmental health" and "food security in developing countries" and so on.

Almost every MPH program has a global health speciality; you and I could tailor ours to have an enviromental bent, maybe by doing some env. health courses or doing a "green" project in another country.

As for integrative/alternative medicine, I'm definitely interested, but I know a lot less about how to pursue it. Maybe the MPH could work for that as well.

Good luck. I hang out with a lot of global health docs, and they all talk about how closely environment and health are linked. Hopefully more people will get interested.

 

[greendoc]

thanks, prana_md. a lot of places seem to have a general interest in integrative medicine, but practical coursework/research in both the relevant science (and ethical methodology of research design--it's complicated!), not to mention the global health implications...not so much.

anyone else out there study alternative systems of medicine--or want to?

....
Almost every MPH program has a global health speciality; you and I could tailor ours to have an enviromental bent, maybe by doing some env. health courses or doing a "green" project in another country.

As for integrative/alternative medicine, I'm definitely interested, but I know a lot less about how to pursue it. Maybe the MPH could work for that as well.

Good luck. I hang out with a lot of global health docs, and they all talk about how closely environment and health are linked. Hopefully more people will get interested