A few weeks ago, I went to Target to buy back-to-school supplies. I stuffed a tote bag too full with notebooks, pens, folders and calendars. This year, I am taking a leave of absence from medical school to get a Master of Public Health (M.P.H.) from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (BSPH).
Students arrived in Baltimore to join the M.P.H. class from around the world. What surprised me was the global diversity of the student body; most students were coming from outside the United States. Looking through a class directory, I was also surprised by how many people had clinical backgrounds and were fully trained physicians.
I was one of a handful of students who had some familiarity with Baltimore and the Hopkins system. I told my advising group about a shop in the neighborhood that would hold packages for $1. I told a classmate where to find the Arcade Pharmacy in The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Another classmate asked me in disbelief, “Did you know that they sell bubble tea at the medical school cafeteria?”
“Yes,” I replied. “I live at the med school cafeteria.”
It is a mix of old and new. A few of my medical school classmates are also doing the M.P.H., and it feels very comfortable to have a built-in group. I’ve gotten to know some new people, too, even though I joked with my roommates that I was settled in and didn’t need to make additional friends. My classmates in the M.P.H. program truly believe that they will impact the world, and that trying to do the right thing is worth it. Medicine is an endless, important, meaningful duty. But it’s another perspective to think about how to solve problems and take a view of how populations are going to live long-term. Even though public health is more abstract, it feels clearer now to define what health is instead of just “not sick.”
There are so many opportunities at BSPH that I am excited to explore this year. I am working on a research project about emerging risk factors for liver disease. I am considering getting involved with campaigns during this year’s Maryland legislative session. I am thinking about the skills I can develop, such as applying biostatistics, conducting spatial mapping using GIS, and becoming a more succinct writer.
It has been one month into the summer term. So far, we have uncovered the origins of a real foodborne illness outbreak, learned about systems thinking, studied the complicated ways policy gets codified, and described changes in human population dynamics. There is still so much to learn, and I look forward to gaining this additional toolkit this year.
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