Identity crisis of public health physicians and its countermove in China: a brief discussion

“Healthy China Initiative” is an important part of national governance modernization and its realization relies on a sound public health system, which needs to be supported by a great number of qualified public health physicians. However, public health physicians were not generally acknowledged by the public and there was a serious identity crisis among the public health physicians in China. The absence of physicians′ role and the lack of well-defined professional function for public health physicians are two main manifestations of the identity crisis. To deal with public health physicians′ identify crisis, following countermeasures were suggested: clarifying whether public health physicians being exactly preventive medicine physicians in China, reconfirming professional role of public health physician, specifying bachelor degree in preventive medicine being a basic requirement for the appointment of a public health physician, appropriately broadening the way for clinical medicine students being recruited as public health physicians, and reforming education and training system for preventive medicine and public health.