USask’s Master of Public Health program positions students to succeed in broad range of roles

Each year, more than 700 students from across Canada and abroad vie for one of just 60 seats available in the University of Saskatchewan’s Master of Public Health program. The two-year program, part of the School of Public Health, has more than 530 alumni – virtually all of whom are either employed in the field or pursuing further education. There are a host of reasons why the USask program is high on the list of students applying for graduate training in public health and among professionals already working in the field who want to advance in their careers. The program is broad based, exposing students to all key areas within the field of public health, from biostatistics to health promotion policy. It includes a 12-week practicum, which gives students real-world experience in the field. And both the course work and internship are grounded in the core competencies for public health set out by the Public Health Agency of Canada. Read on to meet four graduates of the School of Public Health who talk about why they chose the USask program and how it helped set them up for success in their current roles.

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It’s been something of a roundabout journey, but Anne-Marie Lugossy is now working in her dream job, as vice-president and chief operating officer for RAD-AID International, a volunteer organization that brings radiology and radiation therapy to poorer regions of the world by providing local health care workers with education, equipment, and support.

Lugossy, who graduated from USask’s School of Public Health in spring 2021, started her professional career as an radiological technologist in public and private health care systems and educational institutions in Quebec, Saskatchewan, and Nova Scotia. She was first introduced to the work of RAD-AID when she was selected as an outreach volunteer to spend four weeks in Tanzania as part of a fellowship funded by her professional association.

Lugossy says she was struck by the organization’s focus on building sustainable capacity in local workers – through education on such things as workflow, patient care, and radiation safety. “We were there to support them, not to do things for them.” She continued doing stints in Tanzania. And she took on a series of different volunteer roles with RAD-AID.

The experience she gained cemented in her mind that she wanted to work in global health – which led her to pursue a degree in public health. The training she received through the Master of Public Health program enabled Lugossy to leverage her volunteer experience into a full-time, senior management position with an organization she loves.

“I did my masters to gain experience in sustainable global health program planning and development,” says Lugossy. “The program ended up being so much more than that. I strongly feel it has contributed to my competencies as a global health leader.”

Broad-based nature of USask MPH program turning out well-rounded graduates

The MPH program provides participants with the training they need to be competitive in today’s job market, says George Mutwiri, director for the MPH program and interim executive director of the School of Public Health. A survey of program alumni conducted in late 2021 showed MPH students come from a variety of backgrounds. “Most of them are seeking to improve their employment opportunities, to learn new skills to do their jobs better, or to advance their career with their current employer,” says Mutwiri. While the program covers all the core elements of public health, students can also choose to develop expertise in a specific area of interest.

Olusola Remi Bankole, who completed his MPH at the U of S in spring 2016, is a director of acute care services with the Saskatchewan Health Authority. In this role, he’s responsible for hospitals, emergency care, and some long-term care facilities in the northeast part of the province. Bankole says he was attracted to the broad scope of the USask program, which exposes students to the wide menu of opportunities available within the field of public health. “This gave me more opportunities to decide on the career area I was going to focus on.”

USask’s MPH program teaches students to think critically about problems in public health, then find solutions, according to Lugossy. “The diversity of classes that are offered within the program really helps build that toolbox you need to be able to solve those problems,” she says. The program planning courses have proven invaluable in Lugossy’s current role, while the epidemiology classes she took have helped her advise volunteers and partners in other organizations about how to deal with the current pandemic. In the MPH alumni survey, more than three quarters of respondents indicated they were either directly or indirectly involved in responding to COVID.

Another School of Public Health grad, Sujani Sivanantharajah, is currently on maternity leave from her policy role with the Public Health Agency of Canada’s newly created Corporate Data and Surveillance Branch. Sivanantharajah says the knowledge she gained during her MPH has given her a “leg up” when applying for the various jobs she’s held with the PHAC since graduating in 2013. She started as an Outbreak Epidemiologist, supporting multi-jurisdictional, food-borne disease outbreaks. After close to five years in that role, she moved to a Public Health Officer post, where – in the early days of the current opioid crisis – she worked with officials in Manitoba to track drug overdoses. Sujani says what she learned in the MPH program about identifying then filling unmet needs also whetted her appetite for entrepreneurship. Alongside her day job, Sivanantharajah has since 2017 run a popular online career development platform for public health professionals – PH SPOT – that includes a podcast she hosts, blog, and learning modules.

Practicum provides USask MPH students with hands-on experience in the field

At the end of their first year, MPH students spend three months with a local, provincial, national, or international organization involved in public health. Michael Szafron, an associate professor in the School of Public Health who coordinates the practicums, says he works with students to find a placement that aligns with their interests. “Our practicum gives students the opportunity to put public health theory into practice,” Szafron says. “It allows them to master skills that could not be easily taught in a classroom.”

Dahlia Khajeei, who completed her MPH in 2014, is a Senior Advisor, Institutional Analysis with the University of Calgary’s Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. For her practicum, Khajeei led the accreditation of Community Neurorehab Services in Calgary, a facility that provides rehabilitation services to people with a brain injury. She feels the stamp of approval from a field supervisor who works in the host organization – rather than from someone associated with the U of S – shows potential employers that “...your knowledge indeed translates into practice, into the skills you’ve used in the internship.”

Several of the core courses also include a practical, applied element to them, according to Amanda Froehlich Chow, a course instructor in the MPH program and faculty member in the School of Public Health. “Many of the graduates from the MPH program will pursue careers which are rooted in community engagement,” says Chow. “As part of their course work, students have opportunities to partner with community organizations and apply many of concepts they’re learning.”

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Focus on public health’s core competencies equipping MPH grads to succeed

The USask MPH has been validated by the Agency for Public Health Education Accreditation, testament to the high quality of training experience the program offers students. Bankole and Khajeei say the MPH program’s focus on PHAC’s core competencies of a Public Health Practitioner helped set them up for career success. The series of seven core competencies, which “describe the essential knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary for the practice of public health,” include public health sciences; assessment and analysis; policy and program planning, implementation and evaluation; partnerships, collaboration and advocacy; diversity and inclusiveness; communication; and, leadership.

Bankole credits the opportunity to apply the competencies during his practicum at Saskatchewan Polytechnic – and his efforts to keep them top of mind since entering the workforce – with his being promoted to increasingly more senior positions with the SHA since finishing school. “I’ve done that (apply the competencies) in every role I’ve had with the SHA,” says Bankole, who started just over three years ago in a quality of care and accreditation coordinator position. “It has paid off. I think it’s part of my quick progression.” Khajeei appreciated the fact that students are “vigorously tested” against these competencies both during their coursework and internship.

Many potential paths for graduates of USask MPH program

The MPH alumni survey shows that graduates have gone on to jobs in a wide range of settings, including regional health authorities, government ministries, academia, industry, research, and non-profit organizations. Lugossy agrees the program can open many different doors. Her own experience dispels the commonly held misperception that training in public health training sets people on one of two very narrow career paths, either a government job working in public health or doing research and pursuing a PhD.

“Public health is part of so many different organizations and institutions across Canada and abroad,” says Lugossy. “If you want to work in global health, just look at the job market. They ask for public health (degrees), whether you’re taking care of refugee populations or working for the World Health Organization. It’s the same thing locally, for example, if you want to work with underserved groups in your own community, if you want to work with the hospital population, or geriatric populations. There’s a lot of potential.”

Khajeei encourages her friends who are looking at going back to school to consider public health. “As we move away from the current treatment, or biomedical model, and we adopt more preventative measures through public health, I believe there’s more return (on the investment of public funding) from a communal standpoint,” says Khajeei. “Public health ensures the health and safety of the masses. I think that’s reason enough to go into the field.”

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