Questions from a french medical student

[Frenchvisitor]

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Hello,
I'm a student in fourth year of medicine in France, and I have some questions about the public health in USA.
First of all, I want to apologize for my English witch is not so good, sorry 😉
So, in France, at the end of the sixth year of medicine studies, we have to pass a national exam (called "concours de l'internat"); Functions of your ranking, you can choose what you want to do (general practice, cardiology, surgery, public health...); then you have between 3 and 5 year of medical internship ("internat"); at the end of the medical internship you become MD in the medical speciality you chose (GP, cardiologist, surgeon, public health doctor...).
At the "concours de l'internat", public health is not taken into account (I'm not sure of these word, but what I mean is that you can choose public health even if you have a bad ranking at the national exam, contrary to plastic surgery or cardiology for example, which are very hard to choose): is it the same thing in USA? I heard no but i don't know if it's true...
Moreover, public health is a medical speciality in France (i mean you can't be public health doctor if you didn't did medical studies), is it the same thing in USA?
Thank you 😉
PS: please use, as much as possible, a not too complicated language in your answer ^^

 

[concern]

Hello,
I'm a student in fourth year of medicine in France, and I have some questions about the public health in USA.
First of all, I want to apologize for my English witch is not so good, sorry 😉
So, in France, at the end of the sixth year of medicine studies, we have to pass a national exam (called "concours de l'internat"); Functions of your ranking, you can choose what you want to do (general practice, cardiology, surgery, public health...); then you have between 3 and 5 year of medical internship ("internat"); at the end of the medical internship you become MD in the medical speciality you chose (GP, cardiologist, surgeon, public health doctor...).
At the "concours de l'internat", public health is not taken into account (I'm not sure of these word, but what I mean is that you can choose public health even if you have a bad ranking at the national exam, contrary to plastic surgery or cardiology for example, which are very hard to choose): is it the same thing in USA? I heard no but i don't know if it's true...
Moreover, public health is a medical speciality in France (i mean you can't be public health doctor if you didn't did medical studies), is it the same thing in USA?
Thank you 😉
PS: please use, as much as possible, a not too complicated language in your answer ^^

I think you are confusing the Master of Public Health (MPH) program with residency in Community Medicine (Social, Preventive Medicine). You don't have to be a doctor to do an MPH, but residency in Community Med is obviously only for doctors.

 

[Frenchvisitor]

Ok concern, thank you very much

 

[chman]

Like said above, here one does not need to be a doctor to work in public health (although many do). Here, the standard degree is a "Masters in Public Health." Again, often times doctors get this degree along with their doctorate degree. It also kind of depends on what type of public health you are referring to. Others will probably be able to tell you more than I can, but I hope that answers your main question.

 

[spumoni620]

Hi FrenchVisitor,

Bienvenue a SDN! Il y a beacoup, beacoup annees que je parle ou ecrit francais a l'ecole (comme vous pouvez voir en lisant cette "post" avec beaucoups erreurs) mais j'adore cette langue.

To answer your questions, I'll have to turn back to English, though. 🙂

Public health is not really considered a "specialty" of medicine in the U.S. Public health is a field which anyone, including people who are not doctors, can enter. What is required is a college degree and then further training at a school of public health (where one gets a "masters" in public health, or a doctorate in public health.) Most big universities have schools of public health which train people to be experts in public health topics. Public health can include things like global health, infectious diseases, health policy, etc.

As for medicine and doctors in public health: There is a specific residency known as "preventive medicine", which focuses most on public health issues: studying population health, statistics, analyzing the effect of community interventions, etc. In general it is not difficult to get a residency in this field (much easier than plastic surgery, for example.)

Hope that helped!