UT Health San Antonio is seamlessly bringing the dual degree Doctor of Medicine and Master of Public Health (MD/MPH) program under one roof for classes starting in mid-May.
Since 2007, the MD/MPH program has been operating as a partnership between The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) and UTHealth Houston School of Public Health — with students attending classes at UT Health San Antonio’s Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine for the Doctor of Medicine curriculum, UTHealth Houston for their Master of Public Health curriculum.
With the launch of The University of Texas School of Public Health San Antonio’s MPH program in the fall of 2024, the dual degree program will now be available entirely through UT Health San Antonio, with courses for the class of 2029 starting on May 19. Applications for the 2029 class are due by March 31.
“We really want students who are passionate about integrating public health into their future careers and becoming thought leaders and agents of change in the community,” said Premal Patel, MD, MS, MD/MPH program director and professor, UT School of Public Health San Antonio.
Students can use their medical skills for public benefit
Through the MD/MPH program, students can apply their public health knowledge to their unique areas of interest in medicine. This can vary from global health, community health, clinical research and infectious diseases to health promotion, public policy, public administration, environmental medicine and preventative medicine.
The dual degree program aims to help students develop the skills needed to become bridge- builders between the medicine and public health disciplines and communicate complex public health data to the community and other health care professionals, Patel said.
“Students will learn how to leverage their skills as physicians and their skills as public health practitioners to improve community health. For applicants, if you are interested in learning how to improve both individual and community health, then our program is an outstanding way to do that,” said Barbara Taylor, MD, MS, assistant dean for the MD/MPH program and professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases.
After graduating from the MD/MPH program, students will be adept at translating complex ideas and concepts to multiple stakeholders, Patel said.
Full circle: From student to professor
Before starting her medical studies at UT Health San Antonio, Camille Spears, MD, MPH, learned that she could combine her medical degree with her interest in social and economic determinants of health through the dual degree program.
“I learned that I … can do my MD and get all of my clinical basics and the real heart of medicine, … and then I can also learn about all of the surrounding things that impact people’s health, like their social and economic determinants of health, the many different environmental impacts that folks can experience that can impact them before they ever arrive to your door as a clinician,” Spears said.
This knowledge cemented her decision to pursue a dual degree in 2014, leading her on a path that would ultimately bring her full circle as a professor at UT Health San Antonio.
After graduating, she completed her residency in internal medicine at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and returned to UT Health San Antonio for her infectious diseases fellowship, later becoming an assistant professor practicing HIV medicine and primary care at the Alamo Area Resource Center clinic and the Family-Focused AIDS Clinical Treatments Services clinic housed within University Hospital and staffed by both UT Health San Antonio and University Health providers.
“I think that it is … really important to keep an open mind and find where your interests are and things that really resonate with you and spark a passion for you,” Spears said. “Once you find that [passion], it really helps to listen to the communities that you’re actually trying to help and make sure that their voices are involved and always making sure that the rewards of the work that you do flow back to the community that you’re working with.”
The art of balance
Faculty and leadership from the School of Public Health carefully designed the dual degree program to ensure that students would have ample time to balance both curriculums.
“We were very intentional in creating the schedule and curriculum of the Master of Public Health to align with key transition points in the Long School of Medicine’s curriculum and provide complimentary programming to maximize student learning, Patel said.
“One of the real strengths of the MPH [program] is that it takes you through all of the disciplines of public health at the beginning as a part of the core curriculum, and then you can decide what you want to focus on with the practicum, which is the individualized, project-based community-learning experience for students,” Taylor said.
Invaluable mentorship opportunities
Prospective students thinking about pursing a Doctor of Medicine and a Master of Public Health dual degree at UT Health San Antonio will not only have academic support, but input from the program’s alumni who can provide advice and a glimpse of where students can be in the future.
In fact, UT Health San Antonio founded the Medical Educational Dual Degree Consortium (MEDDC), the first such group to unite dual degree programs together nationwide to discuss successes in running their programs and supporting their students. The consortium is chaired by Stephanie Gutierrez, UT Health San Antonio’s dual degree program manager.
“I think we can successfully say that our program is really unique in the way in which [UT Health San Antonio] has all of these kinds of extracurricular … alumni engagement [events] …. class dinners and how we bring in speakers,” Gutierrez said. “We [also] do preparatory sessions and an elective for what the next part of their journey is, where we talk about the intersection of medicine and public health in a specific way [and] bring in career pathway speakers.”
Alumni from the MD/MPH can provide students with an informed perspective from their personal experiences, Gutierrez said.
“Our alums are really great because they have been there … and they can remember when they were sitting in the students’ seats in that specific time frame and can come back and really have that [360-degree] view of ‘I was there and now I’m here and I can tell you all about it,’” Gutierrez said.
Giving back
For MD/MPH program alumna Carolina Clark, MD, MPH, FAAP, mentorship was an important aspect of her experience at UT Health San Antonio and throughout her pediatric residency.
The now associate medical director of pediatrics at the Tennessee Department of Health first learned about physician jobs in public health from a pediatrician working at the department of health who spoke to residents at her pediatric residency program.
“That connection and having met him in person … was kind of how I [ended] up finding my current job,” Clark said.
Clark now gives back by speaking with students in the MD/MPH program via a webinar and answering questions.
“I think mentorship is huge … throughout the entire career,” Clark said.
To learn more about UT Health San Antonio’s MD/MPH program, click here.