Gives early exposure to epidemiology, biostatistics and health systems, useful preparation for physicians who end up in preventive medicine, public health leadership or research alongside clinical practice.
Pay80
Resists AI67
Barrier to entry88
A Public Health background connects to 2 professions on this site, ranked by pay. Each card explains why the major still matters for that job.
Where it leads
School nursing, health visiting, vaccination programs and epidemiology-adjacent roles draw on public-health training; the public-health nurse tradition runs straight back to Lillian Wald's Henry Street Settlement in 1890s New York.
Pay52
Resists AI91
Barrier to entry55
Where this major is taught
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
United StatesFounded in 1893 on the model William Osler helped build — teaching at the bedside rather than only in lecture halls — and still ranked among the world's leading centers for both clinical training and research.
University of Oxford Medical Sciences Division
United KingdomCombines a pre-clinical degree steeped in physiology and biochemistry with clinical training at Oxford's teaching hospitals; graduates sit the same MRCP and Royal College exams as every other UK-trained physician.
Karolinska Institute
SwedenFounded in 1810 to train army surgeons after heavy losses in the Finnish War, it now selects the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and ranks among Europe's most research-intensive medical schools.
Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin
GermanyGrowing out of a 1710 Berlin plague hospital, it is one of Europe's largest university hospitals and a common site for Facharzt (specialist) training in internal medicine after German medical school and the Approbation license.
University of Tokyo Faculty of Medicine
JapanJapan's oldest medical faculty, entered through one of the country's most competitive university admissions processes; graduates still sit the national Ishi Kokka Shiken licensing exam before independent practice.
All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi
IndiaEstablished by a 1956 Act of Parliament as an autonomous, research-driven alternative to India's existing medical colleges, and consistently the most competitive medical school entry in the country.
Universidade de São Paulo Faculdade de Medicina
BrazilOne of Latin America's oldest and most selective medical schools, training physicians who go on to staff both Brazil's public SUS health system and its private hospital networks.
University of Cape Town Faculty of Health Sciences
South AfricaSub-Saharan Africa's oldest medical school, tracing its teaching hospital lineage to 1912, and a major training pipeline for physicians across Southern Africa.
Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care, King's College London
United KingdomDirect descendant of the 1860 Nightingale Training School at St Thomas' Hospital — the world's first secular nursing school — and a perennial top-three faculty in world nursing rankings.
University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing
United StatesRepeatedly ranked the world's best nursing school in the QS subject rankings; a research powerhouse whose faculty produced much of the evidence linking nurse staffing levels to patient mortality.
Johns Hopkins School of Nursing
United StatesConsistently among the top-ranked US graduate nursing schools, sharing a campus and research infrastructure with the hospital where modern residency-style clinical training was invented.
Karolinska Institutet
SwedenEurope's leading medical university trains nurses alongside the physicians and researchers of Sweden's health system, in a country whose nursing degrees have been university-based since 1977.
Credentials on this path
USMLE + ABIM Certification
United StatesGraduates pass the three-step United States Medical Licensing Examination to become licensed, then, after an internal medicine residency, sit the American Board of Internal Medicine's certifying exam to practice and advertise as a board-certified internist.
MRCP (UK)
United KingdomThe Membership of the Royal Colleges of Physicians, run jointly by the Royal Colleges of Physicians of London, Edinburgh and Glasgow, requires two written exams and a clinical assessment called PACES; passing it is required to train as a physician specialist anywhere in the UK.
Facharzt (Approbation + Weiterbildung)
GermanyAfter medical school, graduates earn the Approbation license, then complete five to six years of supervised Weiterbildung (further training) in a chosen specialty such as internal medicine before a regional medical chamber certifies them as a Facharzt.
Ishi Kokka Shiken (National Medical Practitioners Examination)
JapanA single national exam, administered by Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare after six years of integrated medical education, that every graduate must pass before beginning the supervised clinical training required for independent practice.
NCLEX-RN
United States & CanadaThe computer-adaptive national licensing exam run by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing; Canada adopted it in 2015. The case-study-based 'Next Generation' redesign launched in April 2023. Passing it, plus a state or provincial license, is the sole gateway to RN practice.
NMC registration
United KingdomThe Nursing and Midwifery Council's register — over 800,000 nurses and midwives — is the legal requirement to practice. UK graduates of accredited degrees register directly; internationally trained nurses must pass a computer-based test plus a practical OSCE examination.
NMBA registration via AHPRA
AustraliaThe Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia registers graduates of accredited Australian degrees through the national regulator AHPRA. Internationally qualified nurses complete a staged pathway of credential assessment and, since 2023, a dedicated OSCE rather than costly bridging courses.
Kangoshi national examination (看護師国家試験)
JapanJapan licenses nurses through a single national examination held each February under the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Around 60,000 candidates sit it annually, and the pass rate for new graduates runs near 90 percent — the gate is getting through nursing school, not the final exam.