Public health medicine is the vocational branch of medicine
concerned with protecting and improving the health of the
population rather than treating individual patients. Public health
doctors respond to health risks and communicable
disease/environmental risks to minimise further cases, monitor the
health status of the community, develop programmes to reduce risk
and to screen for early disease, and plan for the provision of
health care.
Registrars undertaking vocational training in public health
medicine in New Zealand complete a four-year training programme,
which consists of 16 months Basic Training (during which time a
Masters of Public Health is completed) and a further 29 months of
Advanced Training.