Dear Dr Novick,

As Program Directors of residency programs in the Preventive Medicine (PM) core specialty of Public Health/General Preventive Medicine, we appreciated the recent article by Drs Jung and Lushniak,1 "Financing Preventive Medicine Graduate Medical Education." While the article provides comprehensive information about federal funding opportunities for residency training in PM, we highlight 2 key relevant issues not fully addressed in the article.

First is the major challenge faced by many PM residency programs of securing funding to cover tuition for residents to earn the required MPH (or equivalent) degree.2,3 In addition to the intermittently available stipend resources that require significant effort to navigate and obtain, as described by Jung and Lushniak, per resident tuition costs to PM residency programs for this degree can be substantial. For example, at our institutions, MPH tuition costs currently range from approximately $35 000 to $55 000.4,5

The second major constraint on identifying funding resources to advance the specialty's growth potential, or just maintaining it at status quo, is its name: "Preventive Medicine." This term is one that defies clear, succinct, and effective communication to policy makers, the public, and even those within the health care sector and some governmental settings. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and the associated broadened awareness of the public health mission-which itself is central to PM training and practice-is a timely impetus for catalyzing consideration of a more appropriate name for this specialty, which, in turn, may assist in solving core challenges in funding the training of the PM workforce.

References