The Value of a Public Health Perspective in Medicine
Baylor University alumna Melissa Huddleston, MD, is using her Public Health training to inform and enrich her practice as a physician. She shares her story to demonstrate the value of a Public Health education for those pursuing a career in medicine.
After graduation from Baylor’s Public Health program in 2018, Melissa Huddleston, MD, worked briefly as an Applied Behavior Analysis therapist for children with autism. In this role, she saw how social determinants of health impacted what services children received, how quickly they started receiving services, and how impactful those services were on their progress and skills acquisition.
Dr. Huddleston was accepted into medical school at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso, Texas where she was able to learn from a diverse and unique patient population. Patients would sometimes cross the U.S.-Mexico border to seek medical care or access medications in Mexico without a prescription, making it difficult to determine complete treatment histories and ensure continuity of patient care. These experiences highlighted the importance of patient education, healthcare access, and coordinated care in improving health outcomes for individuals and communities.
During her medical training, Dr. Huddleston had the opportunity to work with and learn from an exceptional rural family medicine physician who consistently reminded her to think about her patients "beyond the clinic." This message remains with her and continues to shape her approach to the practice of medicine. When a patient questions whether to receive a recommended immunization, she takes the time to explore whether fear-based or non-evidence-based messaging may be influencing that decision. When a patient does not receive a prescribed medication, she considers whether barriers such as transportation, access to care, financial challenges, or health literacy may be contributing to what is often labeled as "poor compliance."
Dr. Huddleston is now an attending pediatric physician at the Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters in Norfolk, Virginia. While every community has its own unique characteristics, she recognizes that many of the social determinants of health factors that influence health outcomes are universal. She continues to incorporate the public health perspective into her clinical practice, considering the social, economic, and environmental factors that affect her patients' wellbeing. By combining evidence-based medicine with patient-centered care, she strives to help patients and families achieve the best possible health outcomes. When asked why she recommends public health studies to pre-medical students, she says, "the public health perspective and skills I gained have been critical in my role as a primary care physician and have allowed me to positively impact my patients' health in ways I could not have otherwise."
Learn more about the Pre-Medical pathway for Baylor's Bachelor of Science in Public Health.