Why did you pursue an MD/MPH instead of pure MD?
Why MD/MPH instead of pure MD?
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it's very helpful if you want to do clinical research (ie. familiarity with statistical analysis and study design) or if you want to go into administration/management.
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Public health interest, preventative or community medicine, public health research methods. Those are general reasons
Ultimately it depends on what you want to do in the future. IF you just want to pursue clinical medicine, then an MD will be fine. However if you see yourself doing more research (epidemiology), policy work (policy and economics), or public health integration or community service (health services/systems, program management, disease control programs), an MPH may augment your medical training.
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can someone kindly describe what kind of work does a docotor MD plus MPH(epidemiology) do ? do they still see patients? or only do research? or both?
It's really up to them and their current situation. Some will do research part time and see patients part time, others will do research full time. I can't really see why someone would get an MPH in epidemiology specifically and only see patients, though.
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My primary care physician has an MPH, he's told me many times that he thinks more physicians should receive public health training as it's helped in his practice. He only sees patients.
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if he only sees patients, then isnt the time and money spent behind the MPH useless? ( not critisizing, just clearing out this point as i am in a dilemma myself)
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Not really. An MPH contributes to critical thinking skills, enhances understanding of medical policies and barriers to care, and bridges the gap between patient care and community care. Preventive medicine is a focus of the PPACA, training in public health (which emphasizes prevention) will be beneficial to physicians.
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For an MD candidate considering an MPH, the simplest way to answer this is to consider what type of skill set you want to come away with, and how necessary the MPH curriculum is for that.
I personally think MPHs are particularly useful if you want to pick up quantitative skill sets which would be hard to acquire from reading on your own. Otherwise, MPHs are great to give you a strong foundation of the perspective that public health has when approaching problems. You can also cultivate that perspective from reading through public health literature on your own time (like regularly keeping up with journals like the Lancet, BMJ, and reading important public health reports, many of which your public health classes would have you read).
MPHs can be expensive, so I'd really recommend doing it if you want to do public health work or research alongside patient care (like working with CDC/WHO).
I personally think MPHs are particularly useful if you want to pick up quantitative skill sets which would be hard to acquire from reading on your own. Otherwise, MPHs are great to give you a strong foundation of the perspective that public health has when approaching problems. You can also cultivate that perspective from reading through public health literature on your own time (like regularly keeping up with journals like the Lancet, BMJ, and reading important public health reports, many of which your public health classes would have you read).
MPHs can be expensive, so I'd really recommend doing it if you want to do public health work or research alongside patient care (like working with CDC/WHO).
Yes depending on your concentration. Like others have said, it gives you more tools in your belt. So like biostats and epi will be particularly helpful for research; policy and management for just that. I'm going to do the MD after my MPH; using it as a transition to healthcare from my current job which is stats heavy.
