Public health medicine is undervalued until high profile outbreaks like #covid19. Disease prevention is often behind the scenes work that can be taken for granted. Why do things need to change going fwd? Short thread of thoughts: (1/6) https://twitter.com/NICU_doc_salone/status/1274216996536754186

For over 17 yrs colleagues have fought for Consultant status. Evidence of this is here https://www.irishtimes.com/news/public-health-doctors-decide-to-go-on-strike-1.470280
Also recommended by multiple independent reports submitted to @roinnslainte over many years. Most recently, Crowe Horwath Report in 2018 https://assets.gov.ie/9446/56efd96dac314a9692b785706b5a5ecb.pdf (2/6)

PH Drs know this to be necessary but so do objective 3rd parties who have examined the issue. PH Drs undergo same training as other med specialties in @RCPI_news - Membership exams, training posts around Ireland, Masters degrees. Many have additional higher qualifications eg PhDs

Many PH Drs are close to retirement. Starting from already low staffing base, several newly qualified PH Specialists have been lost to other areas of health service or abroad for better T&Cs. We simply don’t have these numbers to lose - its a false economy for Irish system. (4/6)

Ultimately Irish patients + communities lose out. PH Drs have legislative responsibility to prevent spread of infectious disease. But we can’t prevent spread w/out PH Drs leading outbreak teams. How do you prevent #measles #VTEC or 2nd wave #covid19 w/out Drs on the ground? (5/6)

What exactly is a “Specialist” in PH? Who knows what that really means? Lack of Consultant status undermines authority when interacting w colleagues/stakeholders + contributes to invisibility of the specialty. Its way past time (>17 yrs too late) to invest in #publichealth (6/6)