A clinician can treat an individual patient and still see how much of the problem begins outside of the exam room. For instance, a young adult may leave a clinic with information about HIV prevention, only to face different messages from peers. Or, a parent may hesitate to vaccinate a child after reading misinformation online.
Addressing these challenges requires understanding not only an individual’s health, but also the communities a person is part of and the underlying influences that inform a community's health.
As a practicing physician and assistant professor of infectious diseases in the Department of Pediatrics at LSU Health Shreveport, Dr. Patricia Pichilingue-Reto already had extensive clinical training. However, she knew she needed different training to have more influence at the community level.
“[In medical school], I learned how to treat an individual patient to improve or cure a condition or disease, but we did not learn how to make an impact at the community or society level by promoting health,” she said.
Dr. Pichilingue-Reto graduated from Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Peru before immigrating to the United States for pediatric residency training at St. Joseph Regional Medical Center in New Jersey. She later completed a pediatric infectious diseases fellowship at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and specialty training in pediatric HIV/AIDS medicine at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
As an HIV specialist committed to preventing and controlling the spread of HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), particularly in the South, she pursued an online MPH from LSU Shreveport to amplify her clinical experience through education in public health.
Rethinking How Health Information Reaches Communities
While in the online MPH program, one course caused Dr. Pichilingue-Reto to reconsider how she communicated medical information.
“The course Empowerment in Community Health presented a challenge for me. I found myself relying on the narrative I typically use as a practicing physician, rather than focusing on how to effectively communicate health information to a community to empower them…This experience helped me understand how to approach a community in order to provide the information people need to change any issues related to their health,” she said.
The course helped her examine how communities receive and use health information, a lesson she now draws on when advising teenagers and young adults about preventing HIV and other STIs.
“I have developed a more holistic understanding of health promotion, recognizing that it involves empowering communities to understand and address the health issues that affect them,” she said. “I aim to integrate this approach into my routine medical practice, especially when advising teenagers and young adults on effective strategies for preventing the acquisition and transmission of HIV and other STIs.”
“My goal is to equip [young people] with information that they can share with others in our communities, ensuring that the message reaches individuals beyond my clinical practice."
What Clinical Training Can Leave Out
For Dr. Pichilingue-Reto, public health education offered a way to study influences on health that clinicians may not routinely address when treating individual patients.
“I gained knowledge on how important the influence of several factors like healthcare access, local resources, and environmental factors on population health is,” she said.
In the program, she also learned to consider how a community itself can affect healthcare efforts. For example, “Understanding a community’s knowledge of and perceptions about a health issue can support health promotion and give insight into how to intervene on specific behaviors that improve or resolve health issues affecting these communities.”
Additionally, the program taught her how to plan and evaluate health promotion programs at the community and societal levels. She now applies these population health concepts to her clinical practice and in her own teaching.
Learning With Students From Different Backgrounds
One valuable aspect of the program for Dr. Pichilingue-Reto was the opportunity to learn with classmates from various backgrounds. Online forums and discussion panels exposed her to perspectives that differed from her own experience in medicine.
“I really appreciated the online interactions with other students from diverse cultural and professional backgrounds,” she reflected. “When participating in forums and discussion panels, I was able to understand important issues related to the landscape of public health from perspectives different from my own as a physician, allowing me to view public health without the biases of someone who practices medicine and who focuses on treating an individual rather than promoting health and well-being for a whole community.”
Completing an MPH While Working Full Time
Dr. Pichilingue-Reto completed the program while maintaining her responsibilities as a physician and faculty member at LSU Health Shreveport. The online format allowed her to continue seeing patients and teaching medical students while meeting the program's academic requirements.
“My clinical schedule can be very busy,” she said. “I successfully met all the requirements of the MPH program, including assignments, exams, and the final certification exam, while working full-time as a physician and faculty member teaching medical students.”
Due to its flexibility, the program is ideal for professionals wanting to pursue public health education while continuing to work.
“I highly recommend the online MPH program to all my colleagues, as it is entirely feasible to fulfill all requirements while having a full-time job, even in the medical field,” she said.
Applying Public Health Training to Future Goals
Dr. Pichilingue-Reto plans to apply her MPH training to several areas of infectious disease prevention. One is promoting pre-exposure prophylaxis, commonly known as PrEP, medication that helps prevent HIV infection.
“Completing a Master of Public Health enables me to focus on community-level interventions, such as promoting the use of pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV to combat its spread. Additionally, this degree will prepare me to lead hospital infection control programs with the aim of reducing healthcare-associated infections on an institutional scale,” she said.
Her third priority is using the skills from her MPH to design community health intervention programs. “Furthermore, this MPH has equipped me with the planning and evaluation tools that are required to design community interventions that address vaccine hesitancy among parents.”
Her goals reflect the range of settings where public health training can complement clinical expertise, from preventing disease in communities to improving safety within healthcare institutions.
Earn Your Graduate Degree in Public Health Online
The online Master of Public Health from LSU Shreveport and LSU Health Shreveport offers healthcare professionals like Dr. Pichilingue-Reto an opportunity to develop the necessary skills to become a leader in public health while continuing the work that matters to them.
This 42-credit-hour program is accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH), and topics include epidemiology, biostatistics, environmental health, and health policy. The degree is offered fully online, allowing students to complete coursework around their professional and personal responsibilities.
Learn more about the online Master of Public Health from LSU Shreveport and apply today.
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