Sorry I'm longwinded, but bear with me, I'm currently working at a prestigious internship in Public Health, while there my research mentor suggested to me that Social Epidemiology might not be the best end goal for me and what I want to do.
I like working with people, talking to people, administering treatment and health to them and capturing their stories. I would enjoy medicine, however, I chose a direct path to Public Health because I'm iffy about working in hospitals and would hate surgery and beyond that I felt that Public Health is the best way to address to problems and issues that concern me, the inequal health outcomes of vulnerable populations based on their skin color, gender, and sexuality and societal structure.
My mentor, an epidemiologist by training, told me that 90% of the time an Epidemiologist simply crunches numbers and they're not really in the community, creating initiatives the way most people believe they are. She suggested Medical Anthropology for me, saying that a Ph.D in that field is scarce and would prove beneficial for getting exactly the work I want to do. However, I've been googling and researching about the field and came up with very few details about employment, support, and feasibility.
I personally assumed that social epidemiology programs like that of Columbia would be a perfect niche for me and a perfect mix of both marketable hard quant skills and engaging social sciences. But supposedly I have a fundamental misunderstanding of what epi work is about. I had the end goal of a PhD in Social, Behavioral Sciences or Global Health after the epi master's, but according to my mentor something else may be a better fit.
In reaction to this discussion, I did research into programs that marry my interests in social determinants, global health, and research methods and learned about dedicated 4-Year Global Medicine programs like UIC's, programs that ontop of making you into a clinician teach you core epi skills and global health related social sciences that would make you adept as a public health worker as well. I never knew about these programs until now and my second bachelor's degree is a premed degree so I would qualify, it marries a lot of the things I'm interested in and has the strong reputation that a M.D. carries. Beyond that, in my experience M.D.'s are prevalent throughout Public Health either holding leadership positions or doing the same job with higher salaries. For me the largest issue a dedicated Global Medicine program would provide is the expense.
So my question is, should I stick with Social Epidemiology with the hope of working on the ground helping people through interventions and research with NGOs or is Medical Anthropology or Global Medicine better route to what I want to do?
I like working with people, talking to people, administering treatment and health to them and capturing their stories. I would enjoy medicine, however, I chose a direct path to Public Health because I'm iffy about working in hospitals and would hate surgery and beyond that I felt that Public Health is the best way to address to problems and issues that concern me, the inequal health outcomes of vulnerable populations based on their skin color, gender, and sexuality and societal structure.
My mentor, an epidemiologist by training, told me that 90% of the time an Epidemiologist simply crunches numbers and they're not really in the community, creating initiatives the way most people believe they are. She suggested Medical Anthropology for me, saying that a Ph.D in that field is scarce and would prove beneficial for getting exactly the work I want to do. However, I've been googling and researching about the field and came up with very few details about employment, support, and feasibility.
I personally assumed that social epidemiology programs like that of Columbia would be a perfect niche for me and a perfect mix of both marketable hard quant skills and engaging social sciences. But supposedly I have a fundamental misunderstanding of what epi work is about. I had the end goal of a PhD in Social, Behavioral Sciences or Global Health after the epi master's, but according to my mentor something else may be a better fit.
In reaction to this discussion, I did research into programs that marry my interests in social determinants, global health, and research methods and learned about dedicated 4-Year Global Medicine programs like UIC's, programs that ontop of making you into a clinician teach you core epi skills and global health related social sciences that would make you adept as a public health worker as well. I never knew about these programs until now and my second bachelor's degree is a premed degree so I would qualify, it marries a lot of the things I'm interested in and has the strong reputation that a M.D. carries. Beyond that, in my experience M.D.'s are prevalent throughout Public Health either holding leadership positions or doing the same job with higher salaries. For me the largest issue a dedicated Global Medicine program would provide is the expense.
So my question is, should I stick with Social Epidemiology with the hope of working on the ground helping people through interventions and research with NGOs or is Medical Anthropology or Global Medicine better route to what I want to do?
