Epidemiology with people/patient contact???

[mezmerized7]

I need some input from the epidemiologists (or those who know a little about epidemiology)...

I finished my MPH and was supposed to start medical school but was unable to due to financial hardship, and it doesn't look like I will be coming out of that hardship anytime soon (int'l student!)

I am now thinking about applying to PhD in Epidemiology programs, but before doing so, wanted to know if there were Epi careers where I would have patient/people contact on a regular basis. I looove working with and serving people and that was one of my main reasons for going into medicine. But if I am unable to do medicine, I would like to know if I can work directly with people as a PhD epidemiologist. If so, what specific areas of epidemiology??

Your thoughts are greatly appreciated!!!

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[Reticent]

I work around some PhD Epi/Biostats people in a cardiothoracic surgery and transplant setting. They get some patient contact obtaining consent from patients to use their data for research (and that's limited to when the nurses or PAs are too busy to get the consent forms signed).

There's also the common media representation of Infectious Disease Epi people working with patients to trace back outbreaks to their sources.

 

[Stories]

To the extent that a healthcare provider would have? No. Straight Epi PhDs don't really have consistent contact with subjects/participants in research. It's generally the research support staff that do. The PhD is more involved with study design, implementation, oversight, analysis, and dissemination.

 

[mezmerized7]

Thank you Reticent and Stories. Based on your answers, I guess there is no other way around it .

I guess I should start pursuing my acting career...

 

[Music333]

None of the Epi PhDs--and even the MPHs--I work with have patient contact. Only the research coordinators and nurses do.

 

[rbnsafsadgf]

When I worked at the state health dept in outbreak investigation, the masters level people would call multiple patients on the phone to take a standardized history. The PhD level folks would sometimes call patients. The fun stuff was field investigations! Those are occasional experiences though.

http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2010/05/oregons_top_food-borne_illness.html

 

[mezmerized7]

Yea, I have thought about that field actually. But as you said, the excitement only happens once in a while.