La carrière des médecins spécialistes de santé publique et médecine sociale titulaires du diplôme d’études spécialisées

Abstract Background The French public health medical residency was created in 1984 to train medical public health specialists. Knowledge was lacking on the career of the trained practitioners, with the sole study dating from 1995. In this study, the French national association of medical public health residents aimed to describe the training and career of all medical public health specialists since the inception of the residency. Methods An online survey took place during the first semester of 2012 to collect information on all medical public health specialists graduated from the French public health medical residency. Descriptive analysis of the collected information was performed. Results Replies from 563 graduated medical public health residents were collected from all over the country and years since the inception of the training. Ninety-eight percent of the informants were in activity. They mostly worked in public healthcare facilities (56%) and public administration (16%). Their main areas of practice were: epidemiology, clinical research, biostatistics (37%); health management information system (19%); health policy (14%). Eighty-eight percent of the respondents held a master degree, 29% a PhD. Practical training during the medical residency was deemed as very useful or needed by 73% of the informants, theoretical training by 43%. Sixty-eight percent of informants were very or fully satisfied by their carrier, 29% rather satisfied. Conclusion This is the first study to achieve coverage of more than 45% of all medical public health specialists graduated since the inception of the public health medical residency. Full employment, wide-range activities, evolving carriers can explain the high satisfaction rates. The public health medical residency being the main access point to the public health medical specialty, the impact of the initial training on the career should lead to rethink the design of the public health medical residency to fulfil the needs in the public health sector.