public health degree

public health degree

The Importance of a Public Health Degree

1. Introduction

The field of medicine constantly evolves, and this can be seen in the importance of a public health degree. The article explains reasons why it is very important to earn a public health degree. Because the medical field is a growing field, it is important to have a medical professional manage various parts of the industry. This type of degree can be beneficial to anyone who works within a medical office, including a medical doctor. It teaches students how to manage and implement new ideas to effectively improve certain parts of the industry. This is crucial to the medical field because there are many current issues that are a direct result of past solutions. With negative past results, a new approach must be made to correct these specific issues. It is crucial for medical doctors to have someone educated in public health working with them. With the medical office being an independent or part of a bigger entity, a public health professional is a great asset. Public health students learn how to develop and assess programs that are aimed to improve the health of the population and prevention of diseases. This, in turn, improves the community, thus creating more opportunities in bettering people’s health. By doing this, it leads to a new demand for medical professionals in developing new ways to learn and treat various health conditions.

2. Benefits of a Public Health Degree

The breadth of topics covered in the public health field can be a boon or a challenge in acquiring your first position after graduating. Evidenced by a survey of job postings in the public health workforce conducted by Health Professions Network and published in the Journal of Allied Health in 2010, the most common required/preferred knowledge, skills, and abilities in public health positions included: Communication, public health sciences, inter-professional practice and public health competencies. Public health degree programs offered an advantage with 38.8% of the job postings requesting or requiring a health professions degree as opposed to other candidates. With tough economic times, job seekers might find themselves searching for job vacancies by searching an array of job titles. This can make the process of finding that first job a bit more challenging. A tip to ease into the job market would be to enroll in a job placement internship through your school. According to the American Society of Employers, “employers argued that relevant work experience was a critical factor in their hiring decision.” So secure internship positions can be a trump card to exhibiting your value to employers as these experiences often lead to post-graduation job offers.

Public health degrees open new career pathways in healthcare, government service, non-profit and voluntary organizations, private industry, or as faculty at an academic institution. In some cases, the successful completion of a public health degree will result in better performance on the job or a promotion. It is commonly said that public health professionals are “health (or medical) professionals” who work in the community. This affords these professionals a chance to achieve a high level of job satisfaction in terms of personal accomplishment knowing that their efforts are improving the lives of people. So whether the degree is in public health, allied health, or health science, the time has come for a concerted and focused effort to define the value of the health professions in the improvement of health both in the US and around the world.

3. Career Opportunities in Public Health

Public health’s multidisciplinary focus means that professionals work in a variety of settings. Major employment sectors include health services (government and non-government), community-based health organizations, research and academic centers, and international agencies. The wide range of involvement in promoting the health of populations means that many public health professionals also work as consultants across various health and non-health sectors. Public health is flexible and versatile, and this is reflected in the broad career opportunities that are available.

Public health professionals focus on preventing, promoting, and re-establishing good health, rather than on treating diseases. This differs from clinical professionals who primarily work to restore health. However, in many cases, both public health and clinical professionals work together to prevent disease. Career opportunities in public health are highly diverse, and the core skills that underpin a public health approach are applicable to a broad range of health issues in different cultural, socioeconomic, and environmental contexts. This means that public health professionals work with a wide range of individuals and communities. So if you’re a people person or better working behind the scenes; if you’re a natural communicator or a scientific thinker, there is usually something to suit everyone in public health.

Upon completion of a public health degree program, individuals will have developed the skills necessary to succeed in a variety of diverse and exciting professions. Opportunities are continually expanding in response to today’s rapidly evolving health care needs both within the United States and worldwide. The following is a small sampling of the many career directions you might consider.

4. Skills and Knowledge Gained from a Public Health Degree

The GMC’s public health content for medical undergraduates provides a useful starting point: “Public health aims to prevent disease, prolong life, and promote health through the organized efforts of society,” although an emphasis that public health professionals work with, and enable, communities to achieve that for themselves, rather than doing things to or for people, might be overstressed. The standard-setting process for specialist training also provides some well-defined examples of what such competences can look like – for instance, that an epidemiologist should be able to design and conduct studies to investigate health problems in human populations, and draw appropriate conclusions from such studies. But we must be careful in promoting public health as a field for high-level science, management, and advocacy. All public health professionals should have a common core of knowledge, skills, and attitudes. And whereas public health traditionally found its safest career path in implementing the findings and policy decisions of others, today’s and tomorrow’s public health workforce will be leading and engaging in diverse activities to bring about change – for which a wide and adaptable skill set will be needed.

There are eight core domains of public health. These are public health knowledge, analysis, communication, leadership, team working, understanding of the local context, and health improvement. Programmes should seek to ensure that graduates can demonstrate competence in each of these areas, through a combination of formal teaching and learning, practical experience, and assessment. This overall framework provides the basis for what a public health graduate should know and be able to do. It draws on the experience of the UK Faculty of Public Health as the standard-setting body for public health education and training, and on work done by many others in the UK and internationally. These competences are an essential foundation for what comes next – professional practice and continuing professional development; and for a public health workforce which is able to contribute effectively to population health in challenging and ever-changing circumstances.

5. Conclusion

As the ethics problem will always play an important role in critical decision processes, multimedia annotated recommended treatment plans will focus on the problem of patient characteristics, diagnostic patterns, and medication/drug options. By way of developing a multimedia database of ethics cases to be used in medical education, we will become better able to understand the relationship between ethical decision making, specialist or physician behaviors, and care outcomes. This will give practitioners an opportunity to replay their actions and explore reasons for their choices. When asking what would be the best evaluation process for identifying our study’s outcomes, one must consider the evaluation of clinical decision making in ethical and non-ethical situations. By using the same cases presented in the case report form, we will be able to isolate the factor of ethics in treatment plan choices. This represents a use of work simulation to test a doctor’s decisions without putting patient safety at risk and can be useful in comparing physician decision patterns with established evidence-based guidelines.