Through his career in global health, Satish Gopal, MD, MPH, has called many places home, from Tanzania and Malawi to Bethesda, MD, where he now lives and serves as Director of the Center for Global Health at the National Cancer Institute. In this episode of the Explore Global Health podcast, Gopal shares his path into global health and how he carved out an impactful niche in cancer care and research in Malawi through the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s UNC-Project Malawi. He shares what it was like to embark on this career journey with his spouse and two young children by his side and offers career advice for students and trainees interested in making a difference in global health.
As the founding executive director of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH), Dr. Keith Martin, is working to break down silos and connect research, education, advocacy and service to help create meaningful change for people and our planet. He talks with Dr. Murphy about his career in medicine and politics and why he thinks reforming academia can help solve some of the great challenges facing our world today.
In this episode, Global Health Now editor-in-chief Brian Simpson and managing editor Dayna Kerecman Myers join Dr. Murphy to share practical advice for global health students, faculty, and researchers on how to work with journalists to bring their research and global health insights to a wider audience.
Precious Akanyirige, an MD, MPH student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, has just returned from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where she's been living as an HBNU Fogarty Global Health Fellow for the last year. Akanyirige is interested in using implementation science and capacity-building to provide more accessible, high-quality care, both in the U.S. and internationally. In this episode, she talks about her very recent experience in Africa and why she chooses to pursue global health opportunities.
It is estimated that five billion people around the world cannot access safe, affordable and timely surgical care. And more specialized procedures, such as neurosurgery, can be rare in many countries. Dr. Roxanna Garcia wants to change that. She talks about the state of global neurosurgery, her time as a Fogarty Global Health Training Program fellow, working on projects related to neurosurgery and her goals for advancing not only neurosurgical care, but neurointensive care, internationally.
Northwestern University biomedical engineer, Sally McFall, PhD, co-developer of a new 15 minute PCR testing platorm for COVID-19, discusses the technology and how it can be used to diagnose COVID and other infectious diseases within low- and middle-income countries where advanced medical technology is limited.
Sade Ogunsola, FAS, former Vice Chancellor of the University of Lagos in Nigeria and Professor of Clinical Microbiology at the College of Medicine at the University of Lagos, joins Dr. Murphy to discuss innovative programs and systems in Nigeria that have proven to be effective in preventing and controlling infectious diseases such as HIV, Ebola and COVID-19.
The World Health Organization projects that the world's population of older adults will double by the year 2050 and 80 percent of these older people will be living in low- and middle-income countries. Preparing for this shift – known as population aging – needs to start now. Dr. June McKoy, a Northwestern Medicine Geriatric Medicine Specialist, joins Dr. Rob Murphy on this episode to talk about this phenomenon and what students and trainees need to know to address the needs of older people here in the U.S. and around the world.
He is a physician, professor, mentor and host of this podcast, but how did Dr. Rob Murphy find his way to medicine, becoming an expert in global health along the way? In this episode, we are turning the tables on Dr. Murphy to find out more about his background and career. Listen as Megan Gauger, a third year Northwestern undergraduate student studying Global Health and Psychology on the pre-med track, interviews Dr. Murphy about his incredible journey in medicine and global health.
Maya Jackson-Gibson is in her final months as a Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine medical student. Her time at medical school was spent beyond studying and spending time in clinics in Chicago. She traveled many times to Africa through a Feinberg program and as a Fogarty Global Health Fellow, to take part in research projects focused on adolescent girls and young women and reducing their risk of acquiring HIV and assessing maternal to fetal HIV transmission rates. She talks with Dr. Murphy about balancing medical school and global health research and her plans for the future.
Mark Huffman, MD, MPH, has built a fulfilling and sustainable career in global health as a preventive cardiologist, leading studies and initiatives related to cardiovascular disease and health around the world. Huffman spent 14 years at Northwestern Medicine and has recently taken on a new role as a Professor of Medicine and Co-Director of the Global Health Center at Washington University in St. Louis. He shares highlights from his career in working in global health and details projects he has led to bring affordable cardiovascular disease prevention to low to medium-income countries.
On the first episode of this podcast, we are talking about the differences between sustainable global health programs and volunteer fly-in medical missions. Today's guest is Judith Lasker, author of Hoping to Help: The Promises and Pitfalls of Global Health Volunteering. Lasker is also co-founder of Advocacy for Global Health Partnerships.
From remote clinics in Africa to laboratories at Northwestern University, there is a community of people around the world who are passionate about understanding and improving global health. On the Explore Global Health podcast you will meet these people, hear their stories and gain a deeper understanding of what is needed to achieve equitable and sustainable healthcare and lower the risk of disease around the world.
In this episode, Dr. Rob Murphy welcomes Dr. Hester Klopper, Deputy-Vice Chancellor of Strategy, Global and Corporate Affairs at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. The two discuss the new Stellenbosch University/Northwestern University Global Health Knowledge Hub (SUNU Hub) which has been designed to unite the universities, broaden their scope of expertise and discovery and offer more opportunities for international collaborations between students, trainees, staff and faculty. They discuss this innovative project and talk about Dr. Klopper’s career in global health and facilitating major international collaborations such as the SUNU Hub.
Patti Gravitt, PhD, began her life-long career dedicated to global human papillomavirus (HPV) and cervical cancer research and prevention from a young age. Most recently, she has shifted her research focus to advocating for implementation science and systems approaches to tackle global cervical cancer health disparities. Gravitt is trained as a molecular epidemiologist, implementation scientist, and currently is the Senior Advisor of Populations and System Sciences at the National Cancer Institute Center for Global Health. In this episode, Gravitt discusses her career path in global health, her cervical cancer research, and how implementation science research can help achieve global health equity in cancer.
As a first-generation Chinese-American, whose parents left China during the communist revolution, Kathryn Chu, MD, knew early on in life that being raised in an upper middle class family in the Midwestern United States was “an accident of birth.” This knowledge propelled her into a career in global health, specifically humanitarian and global surgery. Now, as the Director of the Centre for Global Surgery at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, Chu is dedicated to shaping a world with equitable access to quality surgical care for all. In this episode, Chu details her career path to global health and her goals for the future.
In this episode of Explore Global Health, Dr. Rob Murphy talks with Dr. Shannon Galvin, an infectious disease specialist and HIV researcher who was recently named the Director of Global Clinical Outreach at the Robert J. Havey, MD Institute for Global Health. She shares valuable insight into how to balance personal and professional happiness and how she uses her experience to better understand the needs of Northwestern’s clinical partners around the world and harness human capital within the university to help solve problems in global health.
Northwestern Medicine primary care physician Robert J. Havey, MD, has always been motivated by patient relationships. As he advanced in his career, these relationships shaped his approach to the future of global health. As both the namesake of the recently endowed Havey Institute for Global Health and deputy director for the Ryan Family Center for Global Primary Care, Havey shares insight on ensuring the longevity of global health efforts for generations to come.
Forging a career path in global surgery was not on the radar for Juliet Lumati, MD, MPH when she was growing up in a poor area of Lagos, Nigeria. But after her family immigrated to Chicago during her childhood, she excelled in school and was drawn to biology and political science and eventually decided to pursue a career in the field. In this episode, Lumati, now an assistant professor of Surgical Oncology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, talks about her challenges as an underrepresented minority pursuing a career in global surgery and the progress she has made to bridge the gap between clinical medicine and healthcare policy in low- and middle-income countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, where she is working to improve access to cancer care.
In this episode, Lisa Hirschhorn, MD, MPH, talks about her trailblazing career filled with challenges and opportunities that led her to become Director of the Ryan Family Center for Global Primary Care at the Havey Institute for Global Health at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.