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Dr. Steve Thacker: For the last fifty-eight years CDC has been at the forefront of public health around the world. We are universally recognized as the authority in public health thought leadership, communication, practice, and research. While we’re best known for our efforts to protect people from infectious diseases we also work to prevent or reduce chronic diseases, disabilities and injuries. Ultimately our work improves the quality of life for each person at every stage of their life. CDC is committed to developing our future public health leaders—whether you are still in college, a recent graduate, or are already a career professional, we have a training program that is right for you. We offer hands-on training in many different fields of public health, including epidemiology, prevention effectiveness, health communication, and public health informatics, among others. We know you have many choices as you take this next step on your career path. We hope you’ll see that a world of opportunity awaits you right here at CDC. This is your chance to be a part in a public health workforce of the future. It’s a very rewarding experience, as you’ll see, for the people you are about to meet.
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Richards: It is one of the most awesome experiences for the fellows…because of the fact that they get to work with people that they’ve read about. They get an opportunity to do things than can make a real difference. Anyone in public health that is truly interested in getting a diversity of views and a good grounding in all aspects of public health would come to CDC.
Calafat: The fellowship really allowed me to just learn…what is important in environmental health, find out that this was something that I would be interested in doing and for my career; and then it has also helped me to grow in the field and then just make a career for myself. CDC really provides you the opportunity for doing, like, cutting-edge research that has an immediate impact in the public health. But not only of the US population but also abroad. And it has been really very nice and very rewarding to see that I started as a fellow and, right now, I’m the head of one of the labs.
Sacks: I had no idea that CDC actually helped low income women get screened for breast and cervical cancer. So that was something that was really exciting for me because I had been a social worker and, so, I was really interested in issues that affect low income women. Because of the breadth of experience you can get at CDC it’s definitely a place where you want to come and…so it’s a good place, I think, to begin your public health career because you have an understanding of how things work at the federal level. And then if you get a fellowship like the one I was in, you also get state or local experience, which is very important if you do decide to stay in public health for your career.
Oh: We really have a lot of publication opportunities that come out of the fellowship here. My research that I worked on in the first three months of my fellowship—it was published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. I didn’t realize it would be as big a deal as it really is. It’s opened up a lot of doors and I’m glad to have it. My fellowship at CDC has made me a really competitive applicant for doctoral programs. I’ve had great research experience in surveillance and epidemiology of cardiovascular health.
Duprey: The AIS is the Academic Intelligence Service. We’re the first ones…the first to respond to public inquiries that CDC—any type of event in which public health intervention is needed or public health assistance is needed…the first people they call in are EIF officers. The skills that I’ve gained here within this fellowship, those, I think, will be very much applicable to—applicable to many other fields within public health.
Savel: I’m a public health informatics fellow, which means my job is to try to be that bridge between IT, or technology, and the actual public health that’s being implemented. The CDC needs people to have the skills to say ‘We understand this need of sharing data across populations, being able to test states, process data instantly that can get transmitted to the CDC, who can then analyze all of this information and make conclusions and make recommendations.’ The goal is to be able to fix problems quickly and implement them on the fly…without using any paper. It’s all just done through technology. Other public health programs and informatics, you may do a lot of reading about things and…and…and discussing it; but, here, you get to do it. So that’s really nice. You get to actually be involved with a real life problem with a real life solution.
Spilker: I was very nervous at first thinking, you know, it’s federal government—it’s gonna be so strict, so formal. And individ—I mean, they’re real people. They allow you flexibility. They want to mentor you, especially as a young adult entering the workforce. And it’s just been amazing. It’s been much better than I ever expected. You can expand here at the CDC because there are so many areas of interest that you can dive into. You have the opportunity to continuously increase your skill set. When you go into one area or one particular office or maybe even a center or an institute, you don’t have to stay there. You can continue to expand. You can continue to network with other individuals throughout the CDC. And the longer you’re here, the more people you know, the more individuals who are around your skill sets continuously increase—it makes you more marketable. It allows you to better serve the public and…provide better health care to them. So many individuals here come from so many different backgrounds and they are the best at what they do. So to be able to pull from their experience and their expertise, you can’t get that from a book and I don’t know that you could necessarily get as much of that in a smaller…in a smaller place.
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Richards: CDC really is the mecca of public health and it often carries that reputation worldwide.
Calafat: For public health, environmental public health, I think CDC is the place to be.
Sacks: If you’re interested in epidemiology, if you’re interested in science, if you’re interested in—just if you’re interested in the upper echelon of what public health is then CDC is definitely the place to go.
Oh: Just the opportunity to study and work at CDC was a great experience that I really didn’t want to let pass up.
Duprey: I think the public trusts CDC very much, as it should.
Savel: Of all of the things you’re proud of in life, one of the proudest things I have right now is I feel like, whenever I look down at my ID badge, I feel very proud that I’ve…I’m in this organization to try to make a difference.
Spilker: If you’re in public health, CDC is—I mean, it’s the place to be. It’s the pinnacle of public health.
Dr. Steve Thacker: We’d like you to join us for one of CDC’s many exciting training opportunities. Whether you want to work in the field identifying health risks or educating the public…forming strategic alliances with communities or using cutting-edge technologies, we can help you reach your career goals. Join us as we work together to build a strong public health workforce for the Twenty-First Century.
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[title: For More information, visit the CDC web site at: www.cdc.gov/phtrain]