Differences between Medical schools: Primary Care, Research, Public Health...

flyingllama
Tue, 04 Aug 2009 02:48:43 +0000

I’m a rising senior and very ignorant about medical schools. USN&WR has rankings for schools on Primary Care, Research, and Public Health. What’s the difference?

My guesses:

Public health gives you a masters. You become an administrator/manager with minimal knowledge on the actual science compared to the actual doctors. You run the hospital or work at government agencies, etc. More of a business man. But could an MBA take the same jobs? Under what circumstances?

Primary care makes you a general doctor. You get the special M.D. But can you still go into research?

The “research” ones give you… an MD? And you obviously go into research. But can you still act as a doctor? Is this one perhaps a step “above” the primary care schools, because you can do both primary care and research? Or maybe these are all MD0granting medical schools with individual specialties?

As you can see I understand very little of what might seem basic to many of you, but I want to learn. Any resources/info on understanding the paths related to medicine would be very appreciated, thanks.