PROFESSOR GERRY FITZGERALD: The masters programs in the School of Public Health are ideal for students who come mostly from a health background, either a clinical role, nursing, medicine etc or have done public health degrees, undergraduate degrees. But they're not exclusively so, they are also available for students who may be wishing to seek a change in career.

There are three masters programs within the School of Public Health. The Master of Public Health, which is ideal for people who are interested in the community health, the health of populations. The Master of Health Management, which is ideal for people who see themselves having a role in terms of the management of the system in the future. And the Master of Health Science which is ideal for people who are interested more in the scientific aspects of health and of health systems.

Within the three masters programs there is considerable flexibility in terms of the study areas you can choose, ranging from emergency and disaster management, through health system management, through to things like environmental health. This enables you to construct a course of study which meets not only your particular needs at this time, but your future career aspirations.

Our programs are also designed to be flexible where you can really start with as little as doing a short course, and you can gradually build that up through a graduate certificate, a graduate diploma to a full masters program. So if you're not sure at this stage whether you want to take on the full work of the masters program you can start with more manageable pieces.

The people who deliver our programs here at QUT have extensive experience in the health system. Some of them are still involved directly in providing management within the system, or in organising and delivering public health services in the community.

If you're interested in undertaking postgraduate study here at QUT, then by all means come and talk to us. We're very happy to help you with your decisions about which courses to choose. There are many career pathways that are opening up within the health system. It's a rapidly evolving system and we're very happy to provide whatever assistance we can, to see how you best fit into the future of that system and how you can best contribute to the future of health care in this country.