Expert Panel Dinners
The Expert Panel is a coalition of students who recruit experts in the field of global health to share their experiences and knowledge with students. The Expert Panel provides students with the opportunity to explore all facets of global health and consider innovative solutions coming from a wide range of perspectives. They will be encouraged to devise projects of their own that will have a positive impact on global health in the future. HUGH Forum hopes to create a strong relationship between the leaders of global health today and those of tomorrow.
Dinner with Dr. Barry Bloom
Wednesday November 9th // 7:00 p.m. Eliot Memorial Dining Hall
Former Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health Barry Bloom joined the Undergraduate Global Health Forum in a dinner discussion about his work in global health. Having worked for the World Health Organization and the Center for Disease Control, he has many years of experience in the field of infectious diseases. At the dinner, he discussed his work with leprosy in India and the obstacles of overcoming the stigma associated with the disease. Bloom emphasized the importance of providing funding to the prevention of infectious diseases because of their potential to affect a great number of people across the world. He especially favors providing funding toward the health of children, as they deserve the opportunity to live out full lives. Bloom’s talk surely served as an inspiration to all that attended.
Dinner with Dr. David Jones
Wednesday October 26th // 7:00 p.m. Eliot Memorial Dining Hall
Professor David Jones, named Harvard’s first A. Bernard Ackerman Professor of the Culture of Medicine, discussed how health disparities and interventions in Indian Reservations can model global health in developing countries. Jones’ work tore down many of the popular arguments about why native populations first died in the early modern era and exposed the social factors such as poverty, displacement, and malnutrition that have long left Native Americans more vulnerable to epidemics, from small pox in the 17th century to diabetes and obesity today.
His initial research focused on epidemics among American Indians, resulting in a book, Rationalizing Epidemics: Meanings and Uses of American Indian Mortality since 1600 (published by Harvard University Press in 2004), and several articles. Jones has also examined human subjects research, Cold War medicine, HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, and the history of cardiac surgery. His current research explores the history of decision making in cardiac therapeutics, attempting to understand how cardiologists and cardiac surgeons implement new technologies of cardiac revascularization.
Dr. Jones completed his A.B. at Harvard College in 1993 (History and Science), and then pursued a Ph.D. in History of Science at Harvard University and an M.D. at Harvard Medical School, receiving both in 2001. After an internship in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital and Boston Medical Center, he trained as a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and McLean Hospital, and then worked for two years as a staff psychiatrist in the Psychiatric Emergence Service at Cambridge Hospital. He joined the faculty at MIT in 2005 as an Assistant Professor of the History and Culture of Science and Technology. From 2004 to 2008 Professor Jones directed the Center for the Study of Diversity in Science, Technology, and Medicine at MIT, organizing a successful series of conferences about race, science, and technology. In 2009 he was appointed as a MacVicar Faculty Fellow, MIT’s highest honor for faculty who have made sustained contributions to undergraduate education
Dinner with Dr. Karen Emmons
Thursday April 14th // 7:00 p.m. Cabot Small Dining Hall
Dr. Karen Emmons, a professor and associate dean at the Harvard School of Public Health, gave a brief talk about health disparities. She then led a discussion about various issues concerning health in underserved and underresourced communities.
Dr. Emmons is a Professor in the Department of Society, Human Development, and Health at the Harvard School of Public Health, and a faculty member in the Center for Community-Based Research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She has an extensive research portfolio in community-based approaches to cancer prevention and control. Her expertise is in behavior change and policy interventions for behavioral cancer risk factors, particularly for low income communities. She also has expertise in cancer disparities, and in efforts to increase dissemination/knowledge translation in low-resource settings.
The current President of the Society of Behavioral Medicine, Dr. Emmons received the Society’s Distinguished Research Mentor Award in 2004, and the Morse Distinguished Researcher Award from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in 2005. She completed the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine Program for Women (2007-2008). She also provides extensive mentoring to junior faculty, and in 2008 she received both a Mentoring Citation from HSPH and the Harold Amos Faculty Diversity Award from the Harvard Medical School.
Lessons from Sumatra, Haiti, and China
Wednesday, November 3, 2010 // Adams LCR, 8PM
Dr. Sean Palfrey discussed his views on health disparities around the world, specifically in Sumatra, Haiti, and China. He drew examples from his own travels and the state of global health he encountered. He proposed several key initiatives for the development of global health policy in the future.
A past president of the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Dr Palfrey is currently a Professor of Pediatrics and Public Health of Pediatrics at Boston Medical Center. He is also the Master of Adams House along with his wife Dr. Judith Palfrey.
Dr. Palfrey received his M.D. from the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons and completed multiple residencies at Tufts New England Medical Center and the Boston Floating Hospital. He is interested in general outpatient and inpatient pediatrics, vaccine-preventable diseases, environmental toxicology, and child health advocacy and in addition to English speaks Spanish and French.
Even Doctors and Patients Stress Each Other Out
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 // Sever 213, 8PM
Dr. Donald B. Giddon of Harvard School of Dental Medicine discussed the stresses of patient-doctor relationships in which the patient and health care provider are of different cultural backgrounds.
The former Dean of New York University (NYU), Dr. Giddon was professor of anesthesiology at the NYU School of Medicine and Professor of Psychology in the NYU Faculty of Arts and Science. In addition, he is now a consultant in Psychology, Department of Anesthesia at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a clinical Professor of Development Biology (Behavioral Medicine), Faculty of Medicine, Harvard University.
Dr. Giddon received his first clinical doctorate from Harvard University and his PhD in Psychology from Brandeis University following an AB degree from Brown University and a MA from Boston University, also in psychology. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Public Health Association, among other prestigious professional associations. He has also served on evaluation committees for the National Institutes of Health. Currently, he still practices, consults, and teaches, and leads a freshman seminar on Stress and Disease.
Technology and Medicine
Wednesday, March 31, 2010 // Boylston 105, 8PM
Dr. Joseph C. Kvedar, the Founder and Director of the Center for Connected Health, discussed telemedicine, a rapidly developing field which applies communications technology and online resources to improve access to and quality of medical services.
Dr. Kvedar is a past President and board member of the American Telemedicine Association (ATA). Dr. Kvedar is also Immediate Past Chair of the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) Task Force on Telemedicine. In 2009, Dr. Kvedar was honored by the ATA with its Individual Leadership Award, recognizing his significant contributions to connected health and telemedicine.
Healthcare Reform and Technology
Monday, March 8, 2010 // Adams Upper Common Room, 8PM
Mr. Lindsy Strait, Chief Technology Officer for Healthcare and Life Science at Sun Microsystems, discussed the impact of information science on the future of healthcare.
Mr. Strait is the subject matter expert and thought leader for Healthcare and Life Sciences Systems in the field of leading edge integration and event driven self sensing composite application development solutions to the healthcare industry. In this role, he brings over thirty years of experience in information technology with specialization in healthcare informatics to develop and execute high-level strategic planning, definition, and assessment of operations and process for the healthcare global software at Sun Microsystems.
Mr. Strait has held numerous senior executive management and leadership positions in both the public and private sectors. He started in military healthcare systems and continued work on staff at Harvard and in several successful start-ups. A Healthcare Life Sciences thought leader at Ernst and Young, Mr. Strait has collaborated on many International projects including being the founding Chairman of the Open eHealth Foundation.
Mr. Strait earned a M.S. from the University of Southern California in Systems Science and a B.A. from the University of Virginia in Philosophy, Law, and Drama.
Global Perspectives on HIV
Wednesday, February 10, 2010 // Grays 3, 8PM
Dr. David Bangsberg of the Harvard Medical School and Director of the Harvard Global Health Scholars Program discussed HIV, including international perspectives of adherence and resistance to antiretroviral therapy.
Dr. Bangsberg leads the NIMH/NIAAA-funded Mbarara University of Science and Technology HIV Research Training Program, dedicated to training junior faculty in research design, grant writing, and manuscript preparation. The program has led research that President Bill Clinton described as the “nail in the coffin” as to whether poor people in developing countries would be able to take their medication as directed. The ongoing research program consists of a 500-person cohort to examine biologic and behavioral determinants (adherence, T cell activation, pharmacogenomics, and HIV clade of drug resistance) in a resource-limited setting. This cohort is nested in a prospective clinical cohort of over 11,000 individuals managed with a prospectively collected electronic database of medical treatment and clinical outcomes. Additional research projects are examining the bioequivalency of generic antiretroviral therapy, the impact of household economics on sustaining self-pay treatment, and novel Internet HIV prevention strategies for Ugandan adolescents.
Dr. Bangsberg also helped establish an inpatient HIV testing and counseling program in Mulago Hospital in Kampala, Uganda. This program has since become the national model for hospital-based HIV testing and counseling in Uganda. Current studies are addressing the impact of HIV testing and counseling on HIV risk behavior and subsequent linkage to HIV medical care in a resource-limited setting.
Nutrition and Global Health
Wednesday, December 2, 2009 // Boylston 105, 8PM
Dr. Clifford Lo of the Harvard Medical School and School of Public Health discussed prominent issues in global health today, including approaches to nutrition and disease, as well as economic factors.