Would the MPH help?

[BornToLose98]

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Hi SDN,

Would an MPH with a cancer epidemiology concentration help in getting into doctoral programs in Cancer Biology or Molecular Biology/Biochemistry? Let's assume the person also has an MS in molecular biology/cancer biology. I would like your expert opinion on this matter. Thanks!

 

[Seihai]

Not really. It might be an interesting note, but it's not going to make you stand out as much unless you have the research experience underlying it (in a thesis masters).

 

[wholeheartedly]

I think this would depend on what you do with it. There are a lot of MPH thesis projects (especially in epidemiology) at my school that straddle lines of translational science with wet lab components, cancer epi can involve genomics, bioinformatics, molecular epi is huge, clinical trials, pharmacoepidemiology, diagnostics, etc. Those are all public health things going on in epi at my school. I can easily see where skills like those could be viewed as beneficial to a doctoral program like you mentioned.

The trick is to have an idea how you're hoping to use it and how it complements the type of PhD work you're hoping to do.

 

[BornToLose98]

Thanks wholeheartedly. I guess well-designed pharmacoepidemiology studies can examine the relationship between medication use and the risk of either initiating or promoting cancer. I don't know much about the field but it seems interesting.