Medical Specialties and Public Health

[MedicinaeDoctor]

which specialties in medicine lends itself the most to public health work? i'm assuming family medicine, infectious disease, emergency medicine, and perhaps internal medicine (and obviously preventative medicine)? sorry if this question has been asked in the past before!

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[swaffles]

which specialties in medicine lends itself the most to public health work? i'm assuming family medicine, infectious disease, emergency medicine, and perhaps internal medicine (and obviously preventative medicine)? sorry if this question has been asked in the past before!

Maybe tropical medicine?

 

[MedicinaeDoctor]

any more thoughts? input appreciated.

 

[malyafi]

It depends on the concentration. For example, if you choose to do Maternal and Child Health you'd be closer to ObGyn and Peds.

 

[loveoforganic]

And behaviorally-oriented degrees have a place in all kinds of medicine

 

[Roshario]

I know that some specialties might have more public health application, but really you can apply it to anything. For instance, I know several of surgeons with MPH or actively practice public health concepts.

 

[Borks]

which specialties in medicine lends itself the most to public health work? i'm assuming family medicine, infectious disease, emergency medicine, and perhaps internal medicine (and obviously preventative medicine)? sorry if this question has been asked in the past before!

As I think I remember one clinician telling me, the MPH used to be part of the MD curriculum, then were separated as MDs focus on a specific patient's problems. However, having knowledge of public health is helpful with every type of clinical practice as public health issues frequently intersect a patient's health in so many ways. Many MDs do the MPH just to be able to better understand and critique articles in medical journals, in addition to naturally being interested in public health issues. I have seen clinicians in almost every field with an MPH, surgeons, adult doctors, pediatricians, you name it!

 

[PublicHealthDoc]

Look into Preventive Medicine residencies--it's essentially a public health specialty. If you want to see patients as well as do public health, some programs offer combined internal med/prev med or family med/prev med. Earning an MPH is part of the program, and tuition is generally covered.

If you're not planning to have a traditional practice, you can do just a "Public Health and General Preventive Medicine" residency: it's one clinical year plus two years doing rotations in health departments and similar settings.

You'll find more info here: American College of Preventive Medicine
and here: American Board of Preventive Medicine