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I want to work within the government, maybe CDC or local or state govt. as a health officer or something like that. I feel that it would be really fascinating working with health policy and public health programs. [...] I'm just wonderin if you know anything about that career path...like how to get there, salary ranges, job availablity etc.
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<p>You're discussing a couple of different careers here, and even if I knew which one you were talking about I'm afraid I wouldn't know about salary ranges and ease of employment.</p>
<p>It's important not to make the mistake of confusing public health with health policy, as they're very different things. Health policy involves making decisions regarding things like Medicare, Medicaid, physician shortages, etc. Public health revolves largely around questions of epidemiology and why certain groups are more prone to certain diseases.</p>
<p>I suspect both pay rather poorly in comparison to practicing medicine.</p>
<p>If your goal is to consult occasionally with local or state health officials, then getting an MPH in addition to your MD will go a long way. I'd recommend getting your MPH from a different institution if possible, although I recognize how annoying that would be. Specifically, I would try hard to get the MPH from a school in the area you eventually wanted to consult with.</p>
<p>If your goal is eventually to end up in a high position in the federal government, the prestige of your undergraduate degree, your major, and the prestige of your medical school will all matter a great deal. If this is an important part of your education, then, I would be very hesitant to go to the BS/MD track you mentioned.</p>
<p>If you wanted to be very intense about resume-polishing, you should probably go to an Ivy-caliber undergrad, major in Public Policy or Economics, attend a well-known medical school, and get a second degree of some kind -- an MBA, MPP, PhD, or JD for policy, or an MPH for public health. This degree in particular ought to be from a prestigious school -- the others matter but are probably a little less important. You would want to do not just a competitive but a cool-sounding specialty, and you'd be best off doing your schooling all at different schools in different parts of the country.</p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_Gerberding%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_Gerberding</a>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_McClellan%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_McClellan</a>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Aaron_Kessler%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Aaron_Kessler</a>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Frist%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Frist</a></p>