Hey there,
I am a fourth year medical student in the UK, and as part of my degree (Liverpool), we can do a Master's after our fourth year, when we have our medical finals. (Our degree is done a little differently from other med schools in the country in that we have our finals in MSIV and we have a year of "internship" in MSV, meaning we have a UG degree 'in our hands' by the end of MSIV... thereby allowing us to apply to Master's programmes to do between MSIV and MSV)
I am very new to the field of public/global health, and I have attended talks held in London by the Royal Society of Medicine on this field and I think this is something I want to pursue as a career. I don't want to lose hold of my clinical skills as a doctor, but I am determined to find a way to balance individual-level and population-level healthcare in my future career.
Why America? This may (and probably will) sound like a silly reason to some but - I want to see America and I want to get out of England for a while if I can. That's not really a reason to base the choice of location of an expensive MPH on, but I feel that in addition to wanting to pursue the career, I also want to enjoy a new place as much as I can (my other passion is travelling). My long-term plans/dreams/hopes/ideas are to work for or set up my own NGO, and as well as being a clinical doctor, help set up camps/clinics/assist in organisation of the local area of healthcare to help people access and use healthcare the best they can. Being originally from India and having seen this kind of stuff first-hand, I find it frustrating that although health care is or can be available, people from both giving and receiving parties are not making the full use of services, and I would like to work in bridging the gap in the future.
However, since I only found out about MPH and global health, etc. during the course of MSIII, I have not really had a chance to do much or get out and see much in terms of internships/research/placements/volunteering. My question therefore is one that probably most education forums hate - what are my chances of getting in?
I am a strictly average student (who has done exam resits in medical school, not in all of them but certainly some of them), averaging at around 65% if I were to put a mark to it. I have no research experience/work experience in this field. I have done two special study modules (one-month-long modules writing 3000 words for internal marking, not published) on domestic violence in Pakistani women in a small town in England and the impact of Bollywood films on HIV/AIDS education (the two subject titles which I chose by myself), which helped me
think about issues on a population/global perspective, but I have no formal qualifications out of it. I am also a UK med student doing her first-time UG, so I have no UG pre-med either, which I guess US applicants would have (I'm 21). I am considering doing some form of distance learning courses on statistics, epidemiology etc. as although my med school teaches us some of it, there is not a lot of it currently.
To be fair, I have not really had the chance to do anything much outside of my normal medical school work as I have only just found out about these things. But that's not really an excuse, I am just stating facts. lol. How difficult is it to get into an MPH program in the US? I am not even thinking of the top ten/Ivy League schools... unless by some miracle people tell me they might be willing to give me a chance (this sounds incredibly petty/childish of me (trust me I am not!) but I am also an ethnic minority - being Indian by origin - and I am also deaf/hearing impaired and I have heard that sometimes that can work to my advantage? Not that I am 'playing the deaf card', but I would still like to know the reality - I know some schools have mentioned they give some priority to ethnic minorities, etc.?), which I highly doubt as I am sure there will be those far more qualified than I am. I would just like to get into a school that will accept me, is not in the middle of nowhere (as I am currently from 'the middle of nowhere' and I would really like to see 'somewhere'!), and has a decent emphasis on global health as that is what I think I am interested in.
If anyone knows any UK med students who have done this, or anyone with little work experience/academic achievement in terms of research, etc. in this field - or if anyone knows anything that can help me make my decision - I would be so grateful.
Thanks for taking the time out to read this long-a $ s post. lol.
Crajee
ETA: Whoops, it asterisked out the A word