School of Medicine

DVM/MPH

Requirements

DVM/MPH students must complete 42 credits in the MPH program in addition to their DVM courses: 21 credits in the MPH core curriculum, 12 credits for the DVM/MPH concentration requirement, and nine additional credits worth of electives. 

The MPH curriculum reflects competencies in the domains of Evidence-Based Approaches to Public Health, Public Health and Health Care Systems, Planning and Management to Promote Health, Policy in Public Health, Leadership, Communication, Interprofessional Practice, and Systems Thinking. The DVM/MPH program also has concentration specific courses including Global Population Health, , Emerging and Exotic Diseases and Animals, and Legal Basis of Veterinary Public Health. 

Throughout the four years, students collectively participate in a monthly, small group seminar—Integration of Public Health—designed to help integrate what they are learning over time in the MPH curriculum with their basic science and clinical training. 

Courses

The DVM/MPH public health curriculum is tightly integrated with veterinary course work so that students complete both degrees in four years. Students take their core courses with the stand-alone MPH students. In their first two years DVM/MPH students take public health core knowledge and required courses in place of the weekly, pre-clinical field or research electives taken by their fellow veterinary students. Students may take public health electives designed specifically for them on the Grafton campus or may choose from a wider selection from those offered on the Boston campus throughout their first, second, and third year. In addition, students participate in an eight-week summer field experience during the summer between their first and second years, and an in-depth practicum in public health, the Applied Learning Experience (ALE), during the summer between their second and third years.

Program Length

Students in the DVM/MPH combined degree pathway can earn a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree in the same four years they earn a doctor of veterinary medicine (DVM). Students may take up to five years to complete the dual-degree program.

How to Apply

The combined DVM/MPH program is applied to through the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. Applicants must apply separately to the DVM and MPH programs and meet the respective admission criteria of each. DVM applicants receive information and an application for the MPH program in January, once they have been selected for an interview for admission to the DVM Program.  Students must be accepted into the DVM program to be accepted into the DVM/MPH program. The MPH application for admission must be submitted in early March to the Office of Admissions at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. Approximately six to eight students are admitted each year to the DVM/MPH program. Applicants are notified of admission to the program by early April. 

Application deadline: March 1

For admissions information, please visit the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine Admissions home page.

Tuition Costs for the DVM/MPH Degree

The following tuition rates are for 2023–2024 academic year* and apply to students enrolled in the dual DVM/MPH program starting in Fall 2023. Students enrolled in the dual DVM/MPH will be enrolled in the MPH program for each of the four years they are in the DVM program and are therefore billed at a flat rate of MPH tuition for each year.

Tuition: $8,618 per year.

The current academic year's cost of attendance budget (including not only tuition, but room and board, health insurance, books etc.) is available from the Office of Financial Aid.

Tuition rates and fees are effective as of July July 2023. Note that program cost is set each academic year and typically increases a small amount from year-to-year. The Trustees of Tufts University reserve the right to change tuition rates or fees at their discretion.

Career Options with DVM/MPH Degree

There are three broad categories where Tufts DVM students use their MPH training and degree:

  • In the intersection between human health and animal health. For example, one graduate works with an organization dedicated to conserving biodiversity and studies viruses and other diseases that have emerged within Asia and Africa.
  • As health professionals (often leaders) in the human public health infrastructure. Another DVM/MPH graduate leads the study of zoonotic diseases for the Boston Public Health Commission.
  • As population health veterinarians, using the skills learned in reference to human health but utilized in the context of animal population health.