Preventive Medicine physicians

[Leukocyte]

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I am a FM physician who is looking for a career change. I looked into PM residency programs, and think that working in Public Health as a PM doc would be interesting. But I am still very confused about where do PM docs work.

I have done search for PM jobs in physician job engines, but there are non! Or if there are any, they are primary care jobs!

-As a PM doc, do you still see patients? I do not want to do a PM residency only to end-up working in primary care again. I want a career in Public Health only without seeing patients. Is this possible?

-I want to work in a government health department, but how likely is that as a PM residency graduate? Is it very competetive to get a job as a PM doc in a health dept. as a new graduate? Do health dept. PM docs see patients?

-There is a "cancer prevention" track in some PM residency programs. What are the advantages of this, if any?

Again, my goal is to work only in Public Health with no patient contact if possible. I guess a health dept. PM doc does this. Is getting a job in a health dept. out-of-residency difficult? Are there any other job

Thanks

 

[trixmd]

Howdy!

I'm a PM doc - worked in the military for a long time and am now an EIS officer with the CDC. Before the EIS program, most of my colleagues never saw patients and I did very rarely (like 2 days a month). I'm not seeing patients now, but have asked and am waiting for permission from the CDC to do so.

In VA, they'd like their health directors to be PM trained, but few are - not sure if it's because there aren't enough PM docs or not. One of my residency classmates got a job in VA right out of training, so I imagine it's not hard, although most govt budgets are shrinking.

Many PM residencies do have cancer prevention tracks - another one of my colleagues who did this got a job as a medical director for a clinical trials company.

Hope that helps. PM me for more specifics!

Trix