My Background and Initial Impressions

My name is Yunpeng Gao and this is my blog.  In this blog, I will be introducing myself, describing what public health is, and my initial impressions on this subject.

I grew up in a family devoted to science and medicine.  Both my parents were doctors in China and my grandmother was a nurse.  When we came to the US, my parents started pursuing medical research.  As a result, scientific discussions were unavoidable at the dinner table throughout my childhood.  Therefore, even as a child, I have dreamed of becoming a doctor saving lives or a medical researcher driving science forward by finding new cures for diseases.  However, as I became older and more mature, I realized that public health was also a viable career option.  Throughout my childhood, I have witnessed on television numerous public health disasters such as 9/11, the mad cow crisis, Hurricane Katrina, and the SARS epidemic, to name a few.  Through these events and more, I have realized that if I wanted to help as many people as I can, I should pursue a career in public health.  However, in contrast to medicine/research, public health is a very new subject to me because I don't have prior background or mentors that I can look up to.  That is why I am taking this course so I can gain a deeper understanding of public health.  As for my long term interests, I plan to major in public health and obtain a Masters in Public Health.  Although I have developed a new interest in public health, my passion for medicine and research have not waned.  Therefore, I am not quite sure whether my professional goals will be in medicine and research or public health.

This comes to the question "What is Public Health?"  From what I've learned in the first couple of classes, public health is the general well-being of people's health and the measures the people and government are taking to improve their health.  Unlike medicine, public health centers around everyone's health and strives to improve the health of the general public.  As a result, public health administrators and implementers often do not get the respect that doctors get from directly attending to a patient's needs.  I also learned about the three core functions of public health: Assessment, Policy development, and Assurance.  Public health administrators gather information about the health of a population, then  develop policies on how to improve the health of the community, and finally, make sure the services are available and accessible to everyone in the community.  This is the essence of public health.  

My initial impressions on the first couple of classes were that this class is going to be very interesting since there will be numerous discussions and debates.  Discussion and debate makes the class interesting and more engaging because it lets people share their unique views on certain public health policies or events.  By getting input from people of all backgrounds and cultures, we can see what public health means in another person's perspective.  Therefore, I am looking forward to learning more about public health and gaining insight into all perspectives of it.