Working in Global Public Health?

[shiva1008]

Hi, so I've recently discovered the field of GPH and was wondering about the prospects of actually working in developing countries post-graduation.

I feel like I have a good chance of getting into a top 10 school, with 3.9+ GPA, probably 1400 GRE when I take it, and 2 yrs research experience in clinical psych as well as working in an epidemiology clinic. I'm interested in working in India. I am proficient in Hindi and took 2 years of Hindi in undergrad, lived in India for 5 years.

I know these schools have opportunities to do a semester abroad, but I want to know about the viability of finding employment working in developing countries. Does anyone know anyone who's graduated from one of these programs and found work in developing countries? What are the steps that one would take after graduation? For other tracks like biostatistics or epidemiology, there is data on recently graduated students and how many have found jobs and where. Is there any data like this on global health graduates?

Thanks in advance - s

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[honjokun06]

Hi Shiva,

I guess it would be a safe assumption that you are living in a OECD country. Being from the receiving end of international development aid, perhaps I can share with you a few perspectives here that might be helpful nonetheless.

I just got an M.Sc. in Tropical Medicine (with concentration in epidemiology) from Mahidol University in Thailand. The Faculty of Tropical Medicine also has a 6-month Diploma program in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, and most of the students are Western/Japanese doctors who want to work for MSF (Doctors Without Borders) and come here to get the qualification in tropical medicine.

Two of the Burmese doctors who joined the program now works in Tanzania. I'm not sure about the western ones but a prof told me they normally went on to do global health stuffs. I'm sure this scenario is not unique to this program or cohort.

In the past 2 years, expats and short-term visits that I have met include students from a Ph.D. program in the US who did field work here for a few months (one just got a job at the US CDC).

I've also met workshop trainers who's a Dutch lady with a degree in international development, a policy study unit chief who's an MD/PhD, quite a few foreign diplomats, plenty of filipino and burmese professionals working for health NGOs, a colleague and a counterpart who was doing a PhD in conflict studies, just to name a few examples.

So, reflecting back on the people I've met, I guess it's as much about what you studied as what you do with your degree.

If I could afford an overseas degree in global health, I would have taken that chance already though. Hopefully I'm not missing out too much.

As for myself, I got a temp job as a project coordinator in southern Thailand for a year, then a prof at my workplace decided to hire me as a research assistant. I'm finally getting that break as my boss is sending me to Bangladesh this May for 10 months. I'll apply to PhD programs in the States after that. On that note, I would greatly appreciate it if you could post a reply to my thread as well.

Hope this helps.