Women's Health Msc - help me choose where to study

[WomenshealthMSc]

Hello,

I'm looking for any advice from people in HE or who have done a course in specifically Women's Health. I did a Public Health degree as a mature student which finished in 2019 but haven't worked in the field as I had family commitments; I am a single mum. I have now got the time to commit to progressing my career but feel I want to specialise further as my course was not very vocational. I was fascinated by women's health and felt there wasn't enough depth on it within my course - which I did raise but was told that that simply wasn't on the cards. I was very interested in gender based medicine as a way to help the crisis in NHS.

I've recently picked up the book Womb by Leah Hazard and have been blown away that she is addressing so many of the topics I was keen to learn about and feel many women would want to invest time into supporting research into, within female health. I also heard a while ago on R4 about Women's Clinics that were supposed to be starting up as one-stop-shops for women to have a smear/mammogram/blood test all in one place at one time to save appointment times and would love to aim to work within this type of setting.

I live in SE, got a 2:1 (1% off a first, annoyingly!) and could do online learning, travel to London for lectures in the week, or stay in SE (I see UCL has a program - has anyone here tried it?). My favourite topics were Ethics and Law, Psychology, Epidemiology and Sexual Health - topics where I got over 75%.

If anyone has any advice or signposting I would be very grateful, as it is a big investment for me and I really would like to use my skills. A vocational, maybe more practical (?) course is important to me for this reason.

It sounds interesting but what job will it get you?

If you've already got a Masters then do a PhD and go into academia researching women's health?

But academia seems to be a terrible career atm, esp for women.

This would be to get my MSc. The degree didn't have a placement course (it was meant to but they stopped it the year I began as people kept failing to turn up in the years above!). When the pandemic came it left little options and all the basic entry epidemiology roles I went for were taken by people with MSc's because they took people with experience who were willing to take considerable pay cuts due to the emergency situation. I decided to focus on my family instead and lost my enthusiasm.

This is why I want to do something forward looking in this area, as I do think female health is finally being given slightly more funding and we are utilising data much more in a meaningful way to prevent bad health and protect against future bad health for women. I can think of plenty of applications if there is investment, especially since reading this book which outlines so many new ventures.

Have a look at LSHTM Masters courses. They do a lot in the areas of public health, sexual health, mental health etc – may not be exactly what you're looking for but you may well be able to angle your Masters accordingly.

The university is very, very highly thought of, DD2 went there for her Masters, it's absolutely world class. And it has various options for part-time or distance learning as well.

Leah Hazard is so inspiring.

I know little about the course you want but it sounds fabulous. Could you follow people like Devi Sridhar and Trish Greenhalgh on Twitter?

On the subject of reading, have you read Unwell Women by Elinor Cleghorn? Sounds up your street!

Christina Pagel is at UCL - she is amazing. You can also follow her on Twitter and maybe message her for advice?

Thank you all for your advice, as well as the book recommendation @Piggywaspushed !

I had a friend at Uni who went on to study at LSHTM and he was very happy there,so thank you @thing47 - I will pick his brains about his course as he went on to do his MSc there directly from our BSc.

I am not on X/Twitter but yes, those women are role models and I will certainly see if I can follow them elsewhere. So much inspiration everywhere!