The MD-MPH is a very useful and versatile higher degree to combine with medicine and it provides many options for you to follow in your clinical career.
2020 has highlighted the important role of public health in preventing the spread of a pandemic disease and in managing the impacts of the response. While public health physicians are at the forefront of the response to the pandemic, clinicians also play a critical role, and those most able to provide an effective contribution to the pandemic response have public health training. Beyond the pandemic, the climate crisis and other environmental changes are increasingly putting populations under stress. Responding to these stressors requires clinicians to view their patients from both individual and population perspectives.
A MPH provides the training and expertise to enable clinicians to have a broader view of health and to provide some context for their understanding of their patients. Having a MD and an MPH provides skills that will enable doctors to improve clinical services and health systems - to see the bigger picture. Many infectious diseases physicians, emergency physicians and general practitioners have a MPH as well as their clinical degree.
