>>I've worked with some Epidemiologists when I worked in WIC and even with the CDC. You'll have to excuse my generalization, but I put their usefulness just slightly above attorneys.
A certain sort of person may gravitate towards epidemiology to justify your perception, but their contribution to public health is immense and a single epidemiologist can exert benefits on a community that a front-line physician might not match in a lifetime.
Don't take it personally- but are you not an amateur in this area? Could it be that your perception is similar to a caveman scoffing at the space shuttle because there are much bigger mountains back home?
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
