Next Career Move?

Any DPT-MPH holders here? How well does PT fit into public health, epidemiology, or programming.

So soon I will have 2 years experience as research support specialist at a medical school (academia research), doing data management for a longitudinal study on bone health, physical activity, and diet. I also run study sessions for participants (strength tests, anthropometry).

I always planned to do an MPH after this job or after another ~2 years in an adjacent field (clinical study coordinator, entry-level data analyst for state doh, etc). But because of the climate and new interests, I’m thinking of pivoting.

After working in orthopedic research and working in a hospital system for the past 2 years, I’ve found that I’m interested in orthopedics, movement, physical activity, injuries, etc. I love working with the study participants during sessions.

Thinking of physical therapy (PT) school! I think I would enjoy the day-to-day tasks better than being cooped up doing stats and data management all day. I can do PT for 10-15 years, maybe go back for the MPH (or even other certification), then be able to take on a role in epidemiology or back to academic research, or run programs?

How feasible is this?? Is there enough convergence with these fields?