For those with MPH or planning on getting one

[hopefuloptom]

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Hello,

My husband is currently applying for residency. He is an IMG and it's getting really difficult to match. He's been thinking of pursuing an MPH degree to improve his chances. When looking at it through this point of view, does CEPH accreditation matter when choosing a school or not?

Thanks ahead of time

 

[J-Rad]

Hello,

...He is an IMG and it's getting really difficult to match.
Why, beyond the former, is it getting difficult to match?

He's been thinking of pursuing an MPH degree to improve his chances...
Based on the answer to the former question, does he really think that an MPH will improve his chances?

Thanks ahead of time

.

 

[Winged Scapula]

In general, advanced degrees outside of a PhD (in a relevant field) are not useful in helping someone match.

 

[wholeheartedly]

I'm not far enough along to know anything about residency chances, but the above posters know their stuff and I wouldn't have thought getting an MPH would be viewed as that beneficial outside very few specialties. Maybe for preventive medicine, which a lot of programs include and MPH or doing a concentration in infectious disease epi for future ID fellowship. I'm guessing there are better areas to target to make the biggest impact on residency matching chances.

That said, I'm working on an MPH now and anyone who is getting an MPH should go to an CEPH accredited program. Programs that aren't, are often viewed as less rigorous and can be associated with those online degree generating programs. Not all are, but that's the view.

 

[forsparta]

So even a MPH in biostat (for research residencies) or MPH in general tracks (for Internal Medicine) wouldn't help your chances at all?

 

[splik]

no having an MPH in and of itself makes no difference whatsoever to whether you will match regardless of the specialty. A PhD is a different story. You should only do an MPH or other graduate degree if you want to do an MPH and have good reasons for doing so. For example if you are interest in taking up an administrative or leadership poisition of primary care or community health, or even hospital management, are interest in program planning/development/evaluation, working in global health, interested in having an academic career in epidemiology then it would be worthwhile. otherwise save yourself the money.

If you get a prestigious fellowship or scholarship to complete your MPH that will make you more attractive as a residency applicant, if you get a number of publications out of it, if you do various extracurricular activities and international work then it makes it worthwhile. These things can help distinguish you as an applicant but they are as well as high board scores and honors in core rotations and NOT instead of.

Also if you are going to do an MPH make sure it is somewhere like Harvard, Hopkins, Berkley etc and not bumblef*ck state university.

A MPH itself will make no difference to whether to match or not. What you do during that year (networking, research, leadership positions) and how you fund it (fellowship, scholarship) can make you more competitive.

 

[splik]

Hello,

My husband is currently applying for residency. He is an IMG and it's getting really difficult to match. He's been thinking of pursuing an MPH degree to improve his chances. When looking at it through this point of view, does CEPH accreditation matter when choosing a school or not?

Thanks ahead of time

CEPH accreditation only matters if he wants to do public health/preventive medicine etc. As a physician he should only apply to do an MPH because we wants to do an MPH and not because it will improve his chances of matching (it won't). If he does decide to do an MPH it should be at a school where they have a large proportion of M.D.s e.g. Harvard, Hopkins, Columbia, University of Washington etc. I would also say don't do it unless he can get an award to pay for it. He would be better off spending a year doing research and doing a lot of networking.

The exception to MPH helping someone match woud be a primary care specialty if application was selling career aims as being a public health leader working with underserved communities or something. But if that is not what he wants to do he shouldn't pretend it is.

 

[the alchemist]

Hello,

My husband is currently applying for residency. He is an IMG and it's getting really difficult to match. He's been thinking of pursuing an MPH degree to improve his chances. When looking at it through this point of view, does CEPH accreditation matter when choosing a school or not?

Thanks ahead of time

I agree with all the other posters. I don't think that an MPH will help improve his chances to match except for maybe prev med or a primary care specialty. I'm interviewing for residency now while doing MPH b/c I want to at one of those top programs already mentioned and although I get asked about it at every interview, I don't think it had any effect on getting me interviews esp since I'm not going into primary care but academics. I do think that my significant research background did help and so I'd agree that a PhD in a hard relevant science would def help (but prob not worth it for your husband unless he's got a lot of years to do it since they average 6 years or so and mostly only if he wants to go into academics).

I have an IMG friend who already did residency and was an attending in his country in a primary care specialty (but not FM or IM) doing MPH with me at my school and he didn't get any interviews so far. But he also didn't have any American LORs so we all suggested to him to do his MPH practicum with an American physician (esp since we're at a top school), get an LOR from that person and hopefully, a publication, and reapply next year. We also suggested that he network this year through his practicum mentor and other professors/physicians at our university in his specialty and maybe do an externship to get more LORs. There are a few accelerated MPH programs (can be done in a year or less) but most are 1.5-2 years. He should only do an MPH/MPP/MHA if he really wants to and if he will gain knowledge/skills for his future work. And if he does, he should do it at the best place possible in his area of interest (different MPH programs have different strengths; eg - health policy at Harvard).

I think that get strong LORs from American physicians is really important. Our other IMG MPH physician friend's sister did externships at American hospitals and got great LORs from physicians there and is doing well getting interviews in psych (a non-competitive specialty). There are always going to be programs that don't accept IMGs, too, but there seems to be websites/forums that IMGs use to find out which programs those are for different specialties.

 

[the alchemist]

So even a MPH in biostat (for research residencies) or MPH in general tracks (for Internal Medicine) wouldn't help your chances at all?

prob not for IMGs. biostats isn't all that big a deal for research unless you're doing epi research. the amount of biostats you need as a physician-scientist, you can learn w/o doing a 2 year MPH (or even an accelerated program) in biostats or you get an MPH/DrPH to do it for you if you need really sophisticated multivariate or regression analyses. not sure what you mean by MPH in "general tracks" unless you talking about a tailorable general public health track? won't help an IMG as its getting more difficult for foreigners to match since there are more med students graduating and the # of residency spots hasn't grown proportionately with the increase in med school class sizes and new schools opening up. though if it is something interesting and very specific that can be applied to medicine like ID epi, might help an AMG and then only slightly i would think.

 

[PSurg530]

Based on what others have said in other threads, if you have to find something to do for a year, your best bet would be to get some experience in a US hospital by scrambling and doing a prelim year. That way you can get LORs and you will be more familiar with how things work.

 

[Inkoate]

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