Medical Care |
Public Health |
| Focus on care of an individual patient |
Focuses on the health of the population |
| Takes the patient history |
Reviews the history of a population under consideration |
| Looks for physiological, biochemical, and physical measures |
Selects population attributes using surveys (EG obesity, smoking, poverty) |
| Uses offices and hospitals as the workplace |
Uses the community as the workplace |
| Interprets the illness in terms of individual performance |
Interprets community attributes using skills of epidemiology and biostatistics |
| Works in hours and days, and occasionally weeks |
Works in terms of months and years |
| A tactical operation |
A strategic operation |