Environmental Public Health Physician

About this Role:

Join the Maine CDC’s Environmental Health Program (EHP) and use your medical expertise to make a direct impact on the health of Maine communities, especially for children.

In this role, you’ll serve in two meaningful capacities:

• Lead the health team for the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program (CLPPP)
• Serve as a medical expert on environmental chemical exposures

This is a managerial medical position in a public health setting, where your leadership, clinical insight, and collaboration will help protect and improve lives across the state.

Make an Impact: What You’ll Do

Lead the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program’s Health Team

As the health team leader for CLPPP, you will guide and support a small but impactful team while helping to ensure children across Maine receive appropriate testing and care. This work will advance progress toward the goal of eradicating childhood lead poisoning in Maine. It is especially critical following recent changes to state law, including a new requirement that all children receive a blood lead test at ages 1 and 2.

In this capacity you will:

• Supervise a team of two nursing staff
• Oversee monitoring of children’s blood lead levels, including confirmatory and follow-up testing, based on current state and federal guidelines, best practices, and CLPPP standard operating protocols
• Inform healthcare providers about blood lead testing requirements and protocols for the medical management of childhood lead poisoning cases
• Collaborate with other state offices and state clinical organizations to perform education and outreach and to advance CLPPP priorities
• Approve provider offices to conduct in-office blood lead testing
• Partner with environmental specialists to determine when temporary relocation is needed for affected children

Serve as a Medical Expert in Environmental Health

You will also play a key role in addressing environmental and chemical exposure concerns across the state, working with the Environmental Toxicology and Environmental Epidemiology Units within EHP.

In this capacity you will:

• Provide medical guidance to toxicologists, epidemiologists, other state agencies, and Maine residents
• Support responses to both routine and acute environmental, occupational, and chemical exposures
• Support surveillance programs for notifiable environmental health conditions, including carbon monoxide poisoning and exposure to polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS), also known as “forever chemicals”
• Collaborate across disciplines, sometimes in time-sensitive situations, under the direction of the Senior Environmental Health Program Manager

Additional Ways You’ll Contribute:

• Deliver presentations and grand rounds on childhood blood lead testing and lead exposure
• Lead a weekly childhood lead poisoning team case review
• Develop lead poisoning health case management protocols and procedures
• Partner with managers and epidemiologists to monitor rates of blood lead testing in various populations
• Assist with consultations and reporting related to carbon monoxide and PFAS exposures
• Assist toxicologists in responding to community or individual concerns when environmental exposures approach clinical significance
• On occasion, as needed, and as funding allows, support other Divisions within Maine CDC to provide medical expertise for other health conditions.
• On occasion, if needed, provide on-call coverage or work outside of regular business hours for the timely and appropriate management of severe lead poisoning or other serious or environmental health outcomes.

Minimum Qualifications:

Graduation from an accredited Medical or Osteopathic School in the United States (Graduates of foreign medical schools must present evidence of having passed FLEX or National Board Examinations or of current Maine licensure) AND a Master’s Degree in Public Health or at least two (2) years of full-time experience in specialty area with the US Public Health Service, another state, accredited university, or Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Organizations (JCAHO) accredited hospital.

LICENSING/REGISTRATION/CERTIFICATION REQUIREMENTS: (These must be met by all employees prior to attaining permanent status in this class).

Certificate of registration with the right to practice medicine and surgery in Maine as issued by the State Board of Registration of Medicine.

Preferred Candidates Will Also Have:

• Experience or training in the fields of environmental medicine, occupational medicine, environmental health, or occupational health
• Experience supervising staff and managing complex teams
• Strong leadership and interpersonal skills
• Strong oral and written communication skills
• Experience working in a public health program or agency