Please educate me about MPH!

[Rosekiki]

Hi All,

This is my first time at the MPH section of the forum. How's everyone doing?

So as I am planning out a couple possible career options, public health has been one of them in my mind for a while. I spend most of my time trying to make myself a competitive applicant for vet school, so I really have no idea what kind of experience I would need in order to apply for a MPH degree. Could you guys please share with me what kind of volunteer/work experience you had before you applied for the MPH program?

Please don't take it the wrong way; I do not think of MPH as a inferior degree to DVM at all. It's just that I've been thinking about being a vet way longer than working in the public health field. So please, educate me about this diverse field =)

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Epi2013]

I'd be happy to tell you anything I can about me, but I'm just curious as to how you have gone from vet school to public health. There are quite a few ppl interested in medicine who choose to pursue public health, but you're the first vet student that I've seen on here.

As for me, I have over 700 hours of volunteer work, an internship, and 2 entry level positions that will add up to under a year of working "in the field". I hope that answers ur question.

 

[Rosekiki]

I begin thinking about public health because there are actually a lot of vets working in the field. in fact, some vet school offer DVM/MPH combined programs for vet students interested in public health. these vets work in areas related to food animals, zoonotic diseases, and I believe some wild life/environmental areas as well.

What did you do when you earned the hours, and what were the entry positions? Could you share specifically you job functions when you earned those hours and positions? I have no idea where to start!

 

[Epi2013]

My volunteer hours were from various activities like volunteering at a hospital, a breast cancer program at a local health department and I was on a service committee at my college. My entry positions were tutoring in public health classes as well as with the aforementioned cancer program. I also have 2 years of research experience in health disparities and may be published at the end of the year. I'm hoping to go into infectious disease epidemiology and although my experiences are not directly related to that, they are very good at showing my level of interest in public health.

I would suggest you volunteer or do research with something related to health. Pretty much anything related to health can count as public health experience.
I hope this answers your question.

 

[Leelah]

Hi, I'm a little new, too. I think the vet side of public health is really cool.

I worked as a pharmacy tech for two years (which was not as bad as it sounds), and volunteered at a community AIDS center doing mostly administrative duties and community outreach activities, also for two years, one or two days a week. It wasn't very "hands-on" but I got to see a lot, so it was a pretty good experience. I've also done misc. volunteering at hospitals, went to NO after the hurricane.... the usual!

Now I teach in China at a small school for students with minor physical disabilities. As with my work at the AIDS center, I don't "do" any public health, but I'm surrounded by unique PH issues all the time, and that's really what's made me want to study PH before going to medical school.

My advice to you is to just do something you enjoy that may be slightly or tangentially PH-related. Like the poster above said, I bet almost any experience you have in animal care/study/whatever can be looked at from a PH angle. It's all about the angle...