Graduates of the Master of Science in Public Health from IMU are helping to build happier and healthier communities. From the villages of Nigeria to the metropolis of Kuala Lumpur, IMU MSc (Public Health) postgraduates are transforming lives of the people they serve. Although the MSc (Public Health) taught course began in 2011, its graduates are already making their presence felt in a wide variety of public health initiatives, health education, and research and disease prevention in Malaysia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Myanmar, India and Tanzania.
The broad based flexible and modular curriculum has enabled these graduates to leverage on their knowledge and skills learnt in their undergraduate level to upgrade their competencies in a field they prefer and apply them with a public health perspective in the community they are serving.
Hence, with a MSc (Public Health) we have nurses as health executive in the corporate sector, nutritionists as lecturers, pharmacists as researchers or executives in pharmaceutical organisations, medical doctors in Clinical Research Centres and biomedical scientists as health programme officers.
The diversity of talent, which the programme attracts from Malaysia and internationally, has fortified the curriculum and the classroom itself has become a rich collaborative learning experience for the students and the faculty. Coupled with input from the faculty who have years of public health experience at the national and international level it is no wonder that MSc Public Health is the most popular postgraduate taught programme in IMU. Throughout the curriculum, communication skills are enhanced with hours of face-to-face presentation, seminars and written assignments. Research is given its due prominence and the students have to explore a subject for research, do the project proposal, get it through the ethics committee, develop the instruments for data collection, carry out analysis and write their thesis. The research can be done either locally or elsewhere. In the past students have carried out their research studies in Bangladesh, Nigeria and India. The studies done have varied from condom use among sex workers in Bangladesh to utilisation of complementary and alternative medicine in Teluk Intan, Malaysia. The dissertation is assessed by internal and external examiners and the latter have come from Hong Kong, United Kingdom and Singapore for the previous cohorts
Typical of the IMU brand, quality control of MSc (Public Health) programme is stringent and the programme is benchmarked with superior standards. Not surprisingly, this is the only postgraduate programme from a private university that is recognised by the Public Service Department (JPA) for employment in the government sector, provided the student’s undergraduate degree is also recognised by the JPA.
In addition to the research module, the programme includes modules in epidemiology, biostatistics, environmental, occupational and population health, medical sociology, health promotion and public health practice. Furthermore, there are field visits and a two-week attachment in a government public health organisation. Studying the MSc in Public Heath at IMU is thus a unique and rewarding journey that prepares the student for a successful vocation to gainfully serve the community they live in.
