The Training And Daily Schedule Of An Epidemiologist

Epidemiologists are specialists in their field of study. They can be medical or PhD doctors, as well as Masters graduates who have decided to specialise further. The residency programme is in public health and preventive medicine and takes 5 years to complete.

Thereafter, epidemiologists can take up work at various institutions that include the following:

• Public health or health protection services.
• Non-profit organizations.
• Hospitals.
• Universities.
• Government entities such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
• For-profit organizations such as pharmaceutical and medical device companies or contract research organizations (CROs).

Monday

Epidemiologists won't be seeing patients directly but rather handle the information that is gathered from them by clinical researchers. The majority of the work done by these specialists is office based as they have to design project studies and collect and interpret relevant data that is needed for a particular study.

Mondays would be used to develop what type of study would be used for a particular project. This would then entail having meetings with staff such as clinical research co-ordinators.

Tuesday

This day is used to collect the data from the research sites and then implement it into the particular study that the specialist is busy with. All this information will then be interpreted and a hypothesis will be established. Clinical data managers are consulted to assist here.

This part of the study doesn't happen overnight as data is constantly being sent to or researched by the epidemiologist. The process is a long one as the data being sent depends on factors such as what study is being done, cohort studies being very long in nature as patients need to be followed up for years, and how many test subjects are involved, the more people who are involved in a study means that the research team receives more information which means more work for them to go through. 

Wednesday

Studies that have been completed and where a hypothesis exists that has relevance to a particular disease will then be sent for approval to appear in a journal or for presentation, such as cardiovascular outcomes in obese patients to a group of cardiologists, for example.

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Thursday

This day will usually be used for the training of under- and post-graduate students as most epidemiologists are involved with hospitals and teaching institutions such as medical schools.

The day will also be used to incorporate the findings of studies into developing prevention policies and protocols which will need to be implemented at public heathcare sites.

Friday

Administrative issues are finalised on this day and the members involved with the study project need to hand in all their work and feedback to the team leader. If there is outstanding work, then it will be expected that the team put in additional hours such as after work and even on weekends to complete their tasks.