ALUMNI PROFILES
Malcolm Lock MPH (Graduated in May 2006)
Medical Officer of Health for Brant County in Ontario, Canada.
My name is Malcolm Lock, currently I am the Medical Officer of Health for Brant County here in Ontario, Canada.
I come to public health by a very circuitous route, being born in the UK and having started working life in the Electrical Engineering Department of the Royal Naval Dockyard in Portsmouth England. Subsequently, I served short periods as an electrical officer in the merchant marine and teaching, before entering medical school in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (Dublin).
After graduation and internship I entered family practice and occupational health until 2003, when I was approached by the County Board of Health to consider the position of Medical Officer of Health (MOH) for the county. Here in Canada, County health units are responsible for the delivery of many provincially funded government programs and services to their communities. Such services include Healthy Babies Healthy Children (registered nurse home visits following delivery), food premise inspection services and outbreak management, communicable disease surveillance, the delivery of publicly funded vaccination programs to school children, sexual health clinics, health promotion activities as well as other programs. These are cost-shared between the Province and municipality.
As the position of Medical Officer of Health is a provincial appointment, it was necessary that I obtain an MPH as part of the credentialing requirements. I embarked upon the distance learning MPH program through the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and graduated in 2006. During this time I was able to maintain my family practice. I would therefore encourage anyone considering a change in career direction, and needing a post graduate degree, consider pursuing distance learning courses.
Being a foreign medical graduate posed a few initial problems concerning the fulfillment of application requirements for University entrance. However, I had previously taken and passed the Educational Council for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG) examination as an undergraduate (I had to dig around a little to find the certificate!), which luckily was deemed acceptable. I also needed to substitute Canadian law for the American law course requirement. In both instances I was guided very professionally and compassionately through these processes (and several others) by the admission office, and MPH program coordinator. (Cudos to MaryBeth, you were always there for us).
Following graduation I completed a course at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Disease and obtained my full appointment by the province Ministry of Health and Long-Term-Care. In the ensuing 3 years I have been appointed Medical Officer of Health for two additional counties Haldimand and Northfolk, (south western Ontario). Ontario generally is very under-serviced for these specialties.
My current appointment therefore would not have been possible without my UMass MPH. The diversity of courses embedded within the MPH - PHP program has supplied a broad base of understanding to complement my clinical experience, and to prepare me for these senior management positions. I feel I am also now able to be a voice at the political table for many of the social inequities that inevitably exist in our communities, as well as contributing preventive recommendations in arenas that traditionally and historically been an acute care focused, and driven health care system. My hope therefore is to continue to drive the goals of effective public health programs and planning, based upon the solid premises covered in our MPH-PHP studies.
