Just some general questions about a career in public health

[zeppelinpage4]

I'm a PGY-1 pediatric resident, but I've always had interest in public health, policy, and really enjoyed doing epidemiology and biostats in college. I've lately been realizing I don't like clinical medicine, and am thinking of leaving it once residency is done.

So now, I'm thinking of doing an MPH or prev med residency after finishing my peds program. But I had a few questions.

1) Would it be more beneficial to do a prev med residency or to do an MPH after completing a peds residency?

2) How difficult is it to find jobs in public health? And are you limited geographically by it?

3) How arduous is a prev med residency or MPH program? Is there some semblance of a lifestyle? How does it compare to doing an IM or peds residency?

4) Can you have a normal 40-50 hour work week, with weekends and holidays off in non-clinical public health jobs starting out? How's your work-life balance? Is it better than physician life-style? I value my time outside of work and want to have ample opportunity to dedicate to family and hobbies. That's one of the biggest factors pushing me away from clinical medicine.

5) What are some of the biggest downside to the job? I know every career has it's BS, and I wanna be realistic about frustrations I might face.

6) Best ways to get experience in this area as a resident?

Sorry if I'm asking in the wrong place. I don't know anyone in this field, and have no idea where to begin to get an idea if it might be a good fit for me. I just joined up with a research project looking at antibiotic stewardship, so hopefully that will give me some idea if I like this type of work.

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[LookForZebras]

1) It would be more beneficial to do a preventive medicine residency than an MPH. The main reason is you will be board-eligible once you're done the program. Also, most prev med residency programs include getting an MPH as part of them. Chances are you don't have to pay for it, and it counts for some of the requirements needed to for certification.

2) Not difficult. There are jobs all over, though there's a concentration of them in the DC area since so many public health jobs involve the government to some extent.

3) Preventive medicine is probably one of the least arduous residencies. The difficulty of an MPH program depends on the school and the courses you're taking; however, it will be a breeze compared to medical school. There is definitely a lot of room for lifestyle and work-life balance during prev med residency! Your weekend and on-call requirements are likely to be minimal.

4) Yes! You can have a great schedule and ample work-life balance as either a public health practitioner or a preventive medicine specialist. You just need to explore your options early on and be selective about what job you take. Check out this articles about a few options for physicians in public health:

Careers for Physicians in Public Health
Physician Careers in the Non-profit Sector
Government and Public Policy

5) Compensation tends to be lower than in clinical work. There's a broad range of salaries, though, depending on what you're doing - there are certainly preventive medicine physicians who make more than a practicing pediatrician, and others who make less. This may not even be a downside if family time and work-life balance is very valuable for you. Honestly, there aren't really many downsides.

6) A preventive medicine residency will give you tons of experience in public health, and will most likely allow you to do a bunch of rotation in various public health-related settings. For example, your last year of prev med residency might be a series of 3-month rotations including a division within CDC, a county health department, quality improvement in a large hospital system, and an occupational health organization.

 

[deleted462159]

Some prev med residency programs also gets you an MPH along the way, e.g., UCSD's prev med residents take public health courses at SDSU and graduate with an MPH.

 

[Giic]

I'm a PGY-1 pediatric resident, but I've always had interest in public health, policy, and really enjoyed doing epidemiology and biostats in college. I've lately been realizing I don't like clinical medicine, and am thinking of leaving it once residency is done.

So now, I'm thinking of doing an MPH or prev med residency after finishing my peds program. But I had a few questions.

1) Would it be more beneficial to do a prev med residency or to do an MPH after completing a peds residency?

2) How difficult is it to find jobs in public health? And are you limited geographically by it?

3) How arduous is a prev med residency or MPH program? Is there some semblance of a lifestyle? How does it compare to doing an IM or peds residency?

4) Can you have a normal 40-50 hour work week, with weekends and holidays off in non-clinical public health jobs starting out? How's your work-life balance? Is it better than physician life-style? I value my time outside of work and want to have ample opportunity to dedicate to family and hobbies. That's one of the biggest factors pushing me away from clinical medicine.

5) What are some of the biggest downside to the job? I know every career has it's BS, and I wanna be realistic about frustrations I might face.

6) Best ways to get experience in this area as a resident?

Sorry if I'm asking in the wrong place. I don't know anyone in this field, and have no idea where to begin to get an idea if it might be a good fit for me. I just joined up with a research project looking at antibiotic stewardship, so hopefully that will give me some idea if I like this type of work.

If you're really not interested in clinical medicine at all, then I would suggest doing an MPH instead of prev med residency. This is more recognizable to non-clinicians.
As far as lifestyle, you can find very good jobs and make a decent salary doing 9am-5pm schedule. Probably not as much as you would make in clinical medicine right off the bat, but you can work your way up.