Optimizing professional education in public health.

Traditional public health education has lacked required practicums such as are the rule in other health professions. Described is a model professional education program that is built around required course work in all areas of public health and a series of mandatory internships at sites of public health practice, utilizing state and local health departments, other federal and state agencies, and public and private sites where students are supervised in public health rotations similar to those a medical, dental, nursing, or veterinary student would experience in a clinic or ward.