Public health recommended before Med?

[theaznfishy]

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Hey guys, I just wanted to get your opinion on the plan I'm thinking about in terms of getting to medical school.

Apply for Grad school [Public Health] then Apply to Medical school.

-I'm applying to Grad school for two reasons- a) My GPA isn't substantially phenomenal and b) To broaden my knowledge of the medical field

-Note: I'm also planning to apply for medical/osteopathic this year as well but Grad school serves more as a backup plan if I don't get in.

Also does anyone have any recommendations on which grad schools excel in the public health field? Thanks in advanced.

 

[A Long Story]

An MPH will not help your GPA as much as a special masters program would. Unless you have a real interest in public health you should not do an MPH because once you start it and you realize you don't like it as much as you thought, quitting will look bad when you reapply to medical school in the future. Anyway Johns Hopkins, UMich, U of Alabama, Morehouse and alot of other places offer MPH degrees with different tracks... just do your research and see what you like.

 

[LizzyM]

An MPH will not help your gpa. Public health is not medicine and you will not have any more clinical medicine exposure after doing an MPH than you had before (public health works at the level of populations whereas medicine focuses on individuals one at a time).

That said, if you are looking for a MPH, consider the schools of public health or one of the programs affiliated with a medical or allied health school (see www.ceph.org for a list of accredited schools and programs). Some schools limit the MPH degree to people who are health professionals (Harvard being the best known of that group) but others are open to applications from soon- to-be college graduates.

 

[rocketbooster]

An MPH will not help your gpa. Public health is not medicine and you will not have any more clinical medicine exposure after doing an MPH than you had before (public health works at the level of populations whereas medicine focuses on individuals one at a time).

That said, if you are looking for a MPH, consider the schools of public health or one of the programs affiliated with a medical or allied health school (see www.ceph.org for a list of accredited schools and programs). Some schools limit the MPH degree to people who are health professionals (Harvard being the best known of that group) but others are open to applications from soon- to-be college graduates.

I see your point, but why can't you target specific populations by helping the individuals of that population? For example, you want to remove the disparity in health care between the Caucasian and African American communities. You would do that by targeting the African American community by offering special services to them. You can do this by offering specific nursing programs that help individual pregnant African American females with prenatal and postnatal care. There was a nursing program done in Upstate New York and Memphis that did this. It provided transportation vouchers for the pregnant women to have better "access" to health care and home visits by nurses to improve both the mother and child's health and reduce other environmental stress. On top of providing basic general medical care, these things included grocery shopping for the mother, ways to improve her parenting skills and better her family relationships, and so forth. In the end, they found both the mother and child had better health, access to health care was provided, and it was cost-effective in which every $1 put into the program generated $17. This was a success because it was a preventive approach to health. The mother was happier, raised her child better, and reduced costs of later medical needs caused by environmental stress. On top of all that, this was targeted at the African American community to help stabilize the disparity between that and the Caucasian community.

So, they were working towards fighting the disparity within a population through increased care of individual mothers of that population. Thus, why can't PH and medicine be intertwined? They can work together to improve each other. Working to better that community due to a public health concern was done through medical, individual patient contact, which is "clinical" exposure to medicine.

 

[deleted74029]

-I'm applying to Grad school for two reasons- a) My GPA isn't substantially phenomenal and b) To broaden my knowledge of the medical field

Post-bacc

 

[LizzyM]

I see your point, but why can't you target specific populations by helping the individuals of that population? For example, you want to remove the disparity in health care between the Caucasian and African American communities. You would do that by targeting the African American community by offering special services to them. You can do this by offering specific nursing programs that help individual pregnant African American females with prenatal and postnatal care. There was a nursing program done in Upstate New York and Memphis that did this. It provided transportation vouchers for the pregnant women to have better "access" to health care and home visits by nurses to improve both the mother and child's health and reduce other environmental stress. On top of providing basic general medical care, these things included grocery shopping for the mother, ways to improve her parenting skills and better her family relationships, and so forth. In the end, they found both the mother and child had better health, access to health care was provided, and it was cost-effective in which every $1 put into the program generated $17. This was a success because it was a preventive approach to health. The mother was happier, raised her child better, and reduced costs of later medical needs caused by environmental stress. On top of all that, this was targeted at the African American community to help stabilize the disparity between that and the Caucasian community.

So, they were working towards fighting the disparity within a population through increased care of individual mothers of that population. Thus, why can't PH and medicine be intertwined? They can work together to improve each other. Working to better that community due to a public health concern was done through medical, individual patient contact, which is "clinical" exposure to medicine.

None of what you describe is "clinical medicine". Social services are not clinical medicine. Nursing is not clinical medicine. What you describe are very useful and necessary services for some marginalized populations and they can be considered social services aimed at populations at risk (in this case, at risk of preterm birth, low birthweight, and infant death) but they aren't clinical medicine.

 

[rocketbooster]

None of what you describe is "clinical medicine". Social services are not clinical medicine. Nursing is not clinical medicine. What you describe are very useful and necessary services for some marginalized populations and they can be considered social services aimed at populations at risk (in this case, at risk of preterm birth, low birthweight, and infant death) but they aren't clinical medicine.

oh really. interesting...so clinical medicine/exposure is exclusively patient treatment/contact within a hospital/clinic under the guidance of a provider (physician, PA, nurse practitioner)?

 

[Demas567]

Since your GPA isn't good, an MPH won't help you get into med school for all of the reasons that people stated above. A post-bacc would be able to boost your GPA though. Plus, if you don't really have a strong interest in public health, you may end up dropping out of the MPH like someone said earlier. Not to mention that getting the MPH at most schools is a very expensive endeavor.

 

[sleepy12]

If your gpa isn't that great because of sciences classes, public health school isn't something that will balance that out. I think med schools look at public health as they would any masters program that is not science related. Almost like an extracurricular or other academic interest. It definitely would add to your app but I don't think it will do for you exactly what it is your looking for. Also, you can get clinical experience working in public health. I've gotten alot of clinical experience by working on public health research projects that involved being in the ER, dr.'s office, etc. In the end it is still healthcare.