Bucking the trend

Posted by Victor Roy on September 22, 2008

To leave, or not to leave? Unfortunately, that's not even the question for many medical students in sub-Saharan Africa. "How can I leave?" is more often the worry for so many promising medical professionals. With low pay, dangerous working conditions, and greater incentives elsewhere, more and more "would-be leaders" are leaving for Europe and the US.  

Dr. Julian Atim, a graduate of Makarere's medical school in Uganda, is trying to buck the trend. She remains deeply committed, after losing both of her parents to HIV/AIDS in Uganda, to developing a stronger public health infrastructure in her home country. Building the infrastructure for medical training and retention which can produce more stories like Julian's is absolutely necessary.   

While other solutions for addressing the problems created by the brain-drain also need to be explored - and we'll do that here in coming posts - how do we create an environment where educated professionals will want to stay on the African continent

Horizontal, vertical, or diagonal?

Posted by Victor Roy on September 8, 2008

Debates about the design and financing of public health programs can be heated. Do vertical, disease-specific programs, such as TB, malaria or HIV/AIDS interventions, miss the point? The development of "horizontal" health systems and infrastructure, capable of addressing a broader spectrum of diseases, many say, should be the goal. A disease-specific emphasis, however, has been more effective at bringing billions of new $$$ to the table for global health, through schemes such as the Global Fund for HIV, TB, and Malaria and President Bush's AIDS program, PEPFAR.  

More and more, people are seeing both sides of the argument. That's why the "diagonal" is in. Partners in Health's Dr. Joia Mukherjee puts this emerging perspective clearly:  

"Interest in and money for AIDS allowed us to rehabilitate basic health infrastructure in Haiti's central department. Our philosophy was that we could not find AIDS cases or treat them if clinics stood understaffed, empty and without essential medicines.  Thus, the investment in AIDS became our Chwal Batay, or battle horse-a tool to bring us into a larger battle against poverty, inequality and poor health."  

If HIV/AIDS gets more funders involved and interested than "building primary care systems", then why not use the funding for AIDS programs to do more, as Dr. Mukherjee describes? The effective treatment of these specific diseases will rely on this anyways. What do you think? Will the debates about vertical vs. horizontal go away? Is the "diagonal" approach here to stay? Or should we be creating new visuals in our head?  

Global health blogging

Posted by Peter Luckow on August 25, 2008

Relative to other topic areas, there are few individuals or organizations running global health blogs.  But, of the few global health blogs on the internet, nearly all of them are worth checking out.

Here are some of my favorites:

• Global Health Report - Christine Gorman: "Join longtime health journalist Christine Gorman in the search for what works, what doesn't and what needs to happen next in global health."
• Global Health Policy Blog - Center for Global Development: "Global Health Policy is a group blog discussing the issues facing the donor community on everything from HIV/AIDS financing to pharmaceutical R&D to broader health systems concerns."
• Physicians for Human Rights Student Blog: Stay up-to-date with the initiatives of the Physicians for Human Rights student groups across the country.  Their posts center around the three big PHR student campaigns: AIDS, Darfur, and Health & Human Rigths education.
• Global Health Delivery Blog: "The Global Health Delivery (GHD) Blog is the GHD team’s “staging area” where we share the latest news and updates on the GHD Project, and where we hope to exchange views and foster new partnerships and synergies."
• Technology, Health, and Development Blog: "Our goal is to document solutions and exchange ideas on innovative projects in global health."

Stay tuned at globemed.org/blog as we continue to develop the GlobeMed Blog into a key place on the internet for global health news, debates, and discussion.

Join the GlobeMed Network listserv!

Posted by Peter Luckow on August 18, 2008

Today, GlobeMed is launching an email listserv for GlobeMed members and other students passionate about health and social justice. The listserv will serve as a forum to share ideas, discuss related topics, and exchange information about upcoming events and opportunities.

To join the listserv, visit http://groups.google.com/group/GlobeMed and click "Sign in and apply for membership". If you do not have a google account, you will have to set one up.  Once your account is set up, you can modify your settings to use any email address for the listserv.

If you have any questions or comments please leave them below.