Hello. I'm Richard Pinder and I'll be your instructor on the specialization foundations of public health practice from Imperial College London. I'm going tell you a bit about myself and share some of my experiences from working in public health. I trained as a doctor to begin with. I found myself absorbed in the field of military health while at medical school looking at the psychological consequences of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I toyed with the idea of being a psychiatrist, but I also considered becoming a radiologist, which was my first degree or a pulmonologist, which I just thought was really interesting. It wasn't until my boss suggested I have lunch with the senior doctor in public health, that I discovered this fascinating specialty. So I began what we call specialty training here in the United Kingdom. I completed my MPH here at Imperial quite a long time ago now and I qualified several years later as a consultant public health physician. That's the equivalent of a board-certified specialist in other countries. I've worked in a wide variety of roles. I've worked as a doctor in England's health service, as a senior policy adviser to the Department of Health and social care our government health ministry in public health England as well as in the private sector consulting for the pharmaceutical industry. The last four years, I've spent my time working as a senior public health specialists running a small team of public health practitioners in municipal government here in London focusing on health care and health Intelligence. Throughout all our training and experience, I've also worked part of the time here at Imperial College London, teaching and undertaking research. My special interest in public health are around health care, health systems, as well as in education and training. In my role now, I'm responsible for ensuring our medical students and junior doctors understand the public health. I spent four days a week here in the School of Public Health. Then one day per week in practice working with practitioners and facing the political and organizational challenges of a modern western health system. For me, the best thing about public health, is the ability to work with really smart, motivated and effective colleagues. I'm hugely fortunate to have a job that I love and the job that makes a difference whether for our population in my service role, or my students in the university. Public health allows me to deal with complex and interesting problems. It allows me to engage and influence politicians, senior decision-makers, members of the public, and many more groups. Now, while I'm passionate about public health, it doesn't mean that it's always easy. Public health in government and the health service is a slow game with occasional wins, but with benefits deferred many months if not years into the future. You have to be really patient to do this job, and very resilient to the setbacks that inevitably arise. My two top tips for you would be, think broadly. What I love about public health is that it's potentially so broad that I can claim anything as being public health related. Listen to the radio, watch the news, and then you broaden your context and understanding of public policy, and how all of these complex drivers and mediators interact. My second tip is take part. If you engage in the opportunities we've set up on this platform as part of this specialization, you'll learn from your peers as much as you learn from me and the teaching team. So I'll be your guide as you undertake this exploration of public health. Join us and learn about the foundations of public health practice.