Epidemic Intelligence Service and Public Health

[kitkat06]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Does anyone know about a pharmacist's role in the Epidemic Intelligence Service? There are only a few Pharm.Ds in EIS, and I don't imagine that they would be on SDN...

Are there pharmacists on SDN praciticing in the areas of public health, bioterrorism recognition and response? Any doing research on bacterial and mycotic diseases I could speak with?

Please PM me if you are someone I could contact, or if you know of anyone I could get further relevant info from 🙂 Thanks!

 

[DownonthePharm]

🙂 I would like to know this infomation as well.

 

[kitkat06]

Darn, downonthepharm! I thought you have the desired response to my question when I saw my post title was bolded on the current student and practicing pharmacist page. You sure fooled me 😛

Would anyone like to contribute to this thread?

 

[kitkat06]

do you have a MPH, by any chance, DownonthePharm?

 

[DownonthePharm]

No, I dont, but as strange as this sounds learning about bioterrorism recognition and disaster response is sort of a hobby of mine. There are lots of free online classes 🙂 and I used to do them at my old job when I had spare time. It would be really interesting if I could incorporate this "hobby" into my pharmacy career.

 

[sdn1977]

There are lots of pharmacists who work for or contract with the CDC.

You can also google First Responders Pharmacists to get more links to those who like to travel to US disasters. Fortunately, there are often enough licnesed personnel to do the job adequately. Interesting work for a volunteer though.

 

[no-see-um]

A lot of the pharmacists at CDC who I know of, also have another degree- such as a Ph.D in epidemiology... You're not exactly going to be a pharmacist there in the conventional sense. You'd be a licensed pharmacist (the degree is always yours), working in another field!

With regards to the Epidemic Intelligence Service, it's a prestigious service that accepts some of the best and the brightest of all health fields- there are a few pharmacists- but your CV must be immaculate as there is stiff competition for that. I see from another thread that you will be starting pharmacy school next year. Congrats. Concentrate on pharmacy school, first, and see where your interests lie, thereafter. There's a world of opportunities and alternatives where you can practice public health.

As a pharmacist, you can always become a part of a community/regional emergency and disaster response team. Pharmacists play a good role in health care when it comes to such issues. I've worked with pharmacists who have been a part of the Federal response to Hurricane Katrina- with regards to Emergency Support Function 8 of the Federal Disaster Response Plan (http://www.astho.org/pubs/ESF8TableofOrganization.pdf), and they have some unique first-hand experiences. All sorts of professionals- whether in health care, or argriculture could play a small role in disaster preparedness. And there are many levels to that Emergency Support plan that a pharmacist can be a part of- it's all comes down to the skills that you bring to the table. No matter where you may fit in, in that scheme, It's an honorable thing to do.

 

[tussionex]

There are lots of pharmacists who work for or contract with the CDC.

You can also google First Responders Pharmacists to get more links to those who like to travel to US disasters. Fortunately, there are often enough licnesed personnel to do the job adequately. Interesting work for a volunteer though.

i have a pharmacist friend who is part of the first responder's program and went to hurricane katrina. however, she is a paramedic, and worked as a medic, not a pharmacist.

 

[lord999]

Although I'm trained and amply qualified to enter EIS service, I like to actually get paid for the work I do...

Two of my classmates entered federal service after graduation. One of my PhD classmates joined the EIS. The other just joined the civil service. They work together and the EIS officer got paid less, because what people don't realize is that the EIS is a training program rather than a full-service deployment. It was heavily utilized in the days before academic public health departments with epi didn't exist. Nowadays, it's probably smarter to just go through graduate training and join the CDC as an equal rather than as a trainee.

None of the jobs that the EIS do are restricted to EIS. Each constituent center within CDC have people delegated to attend to the same concerns. What seperates EIS from normal assignments is that you get more training and supervision over your work than a GS-13 would.

If you really want to know the qualifications for the postions you want, go to usajobs.gov and search under department series for DHHS. You'll see duties, payscales, and promotion potentials for all entry to senior tracks within the bureaucracy. You can also do a series search for pharmacist (although you probably want to do the health researcher one for this effort).

PM if you want to talk about this offline.

 

[lord999]

What's also wicked sick is that researchers are paid less than clinicians at the CDC. I was kind of....shocked to see the difference when I got my position.