Anecdotes and advice about preparing for a career in health

Category: Public Health (Page 2 of 3)

Upcoming Events

While you’re getting settled in your first week of classes, don’t forget about all of the great pre-health events that are coming up, both on and off campus.

SOPHAS Virtual Fair Featuring SOPHAS Public Health Schools & Programs

Join the free SOPHAS Virtual Fair today and tomorrow! SOPHAS schools and programs will participate in a virtual graduate school fair for advisors and prospective students of public health. The fair will be conducted entirely online and participants will have the opportunity to chat live with admissions officers and program chairs, review information about specific degree programs, and upload resumes to share with admissions representatives. The event is free for prospective students and advisors. Register Here.

For questions or more information contact Tucker O’Donnell at Todonnell@aspph.org or 202-296-1099 x.130.

Somerville Dog Fest

Love dogs?? Please see below for a message from the organizers of this event happening on Sunday, September 13:

This year’s festival is right around the corner and we would love to see your smiling faces again 🙂

If you are interested in volunteering please let me know [email Bethany@somdogfest.org] which of the following time slots would work best for you (You can choose more than one if you’d like) and if you have any previous dog training experience:

8:00AM-11:00AM

11:00AM-2:00PM

2:00PM-4:30PM

Thank you in advance for your help! The festival couldn’t happen without you!

Intro Meeting for All Pre-Health Clubs

  • Pre Med, Pre Dent, Pre Vet
  • Public Health at Tufts
  • Local health activism and service
  • Global health initiatives

Monday, September 14

7:00 PM in Dowling 745 

Hosted by the health professions advisors

  •  Meet the club officers
  • Learn about programs and activities
  • Sign up for email newsletters and reminders
  • Get involved

Dental Careers and Application Process Information Session at MIT

  • Who: The event is open not only to MIT students and alumni, but to any interested pre-dental students and alumni in the Boston area.
  • When: Tuesday, September 15, 3:30-4:30 p.m.
  • Where: Room 2-103 (MIT Campus)
  • Description: Dr. Jeff Turchi currently serves as an Assistant Professor, Manager of Admissions and Recruiting, and Continuing Education Coordinator at Western University of Health Sciences College of Dental Medicine. He will be discussing the path to dental school and the application process, how to find the best school for you, the dental profession in general, and the unique qualities of Western University College of Dental Medicine. There will be a brief presentation and unlimited Q and A.
  • To Register: If possible, please email Jennifer Earls if you plan to attend: jearls@mit.edu

Sheep on the Hill (Baaaa!)

On Wednesday, September 16, Dr. John Pollock and Dr. David Lee-Parritz will be bringing some sheep to Tufts to talk about agriculture, sheep physiology and biology, sheep handling and restraint, and the veterinary school process. **More details to come!

Sheep

Reflections on “A Taste of Global Health”

Senior Biochemistry major Matt Ryan talks about planning A Taste of Global Health, a Timmy Global Health event that brought international cuisine to the Carmichael dining hall:

The event started as the brainchild of our Timmy Global Health chapter president Alejandra Garcia-Pletsch. The concept was simple: a themed night in the dining halls to celebrate the host countries of a handful of the global health groups on campus.

So I first reached out to Tufts Dining back in September to see how we could put our idea into action. Soon afterward, I met with Carmichael Dining Center manager Peter Kourafalos. From the get-go he was enthusiastic and was instrumental in getting this event off the ground. As he explained it, student-sponsored events like these are always a welcome addition to the normal dining menu.

The only difficulty comes with scheduling: themed nights are planned well in advance, usually before the school year even starts. However, with Peter’s support and excitement, we tossed around a number of ideas to creatively incorporate cuisine, decorations and conversations on global health into the event.

A Taste of Global Health

The next month I sat down with the Tufts Dining dietician Julie Lampie, the head chef Toby, and Peter. With extensive experience in dining management, Julie’s input really transformed the event from a set of ideas into a tangible goal. From there we began to tackle the logistics: recipes, decorations, music, advertisements and finalizing the date.

With the event now confirmed, I reached out to BUILD: India and GlobeMed, two groups on campus that, like Timmy Global Health, also participate in annual service trips to their host countries of India and Nepal, respectively. Each of our groups was tasked with compiling menus for the event: 2 entreés, 2 starches, 2 vegetables, 1 appetizer and 1 dessert. As fall semester came to a close, I looked forward to our January medical service trip to Xela, Guatemala, to draw inspiration.

On returning from break, it was a little difficult to regain momentum. Since I was the middleman between the student groups and dining management, the next few weeks were filled with various email threads, meetings and menu revisions.

Early in February I again sat down with the Carmichael team to run through the menu. For the first time I took the backseat as I listened to the three of them run through each item, discussing portions, available recipes, ordering, serving options, tweaking and re-tweaking the recipes….It really was incredible to witness the amount of planning that goes into each dinner service.

Students at A Taste of Global Health

Finally on the day of the event, I stopped by in the morning to set up 75 trifold table tents, with each panel dedicated to a student group. Later that afternoon, I met with students from GlobeMed and BUILD: India to start set up at 3:30 PM. With Peter’s help, we set up tables with posters, banners, pictures and information about our groups. We hung papel picado to decorate the choco-banana stand.

We also handed over three CD’s worth of music inspired by chart toppers in Guatemala, Nepal and India. My group set up a table outside to sell Guatemalan scarves, necklaces, earrings and bracelets that we had purchased on our trip two months prior.

Timmy E-Board at A Taste of Global Health

Timmy E-Board

Overall, the event was an absolute success. Between tabling shifts for Timmy Global Health, I eagerly buzzed around Carmichael proud to see many months’ work come to life. I myself was blown away by the dinner, and many friends came up to me saying that the food was the best they’d ever had in Carmichael.

Most importantly though, it was a success because of the conversations we had with interested students eager to learn more about our work and ways to get involved. My hope is that the event helped students appreciate the rich cultural diversity of our host countries and the impact of our work. Looking forward, I hope we can continue to collaborate with Tufts Dining to make great food for a great cause. ¡Buen provecho!

Photos via Kristie Le ’17/Tufts Dining Facebook page

What is One Health?

The director of Tufts One Health, junior John Ramatowski, explains what this interdisciplinary organization is all about:

Tufts One Health logo

What does the word “health” mean to you? How has your intended career path shaped this definition? It seems that we teach the interdisciplinary out of students as we progress through our educational system. Well, Tufts One Health is trying to change that. All of it.

One Health is the belief that human, animal, and environmental health are inextricably linked. We should no longer research and learn about these fields in a siloed manner. As our world becomes ever more connected, solving emerging health crises will require a holistic approach that crosses academic and international boundaries. One Health examples are all around us. In our community, Lyme disease, vermin control, and air pollution are three health concerns that require integrated solutions to produce effective and lasting change.

The field of One Health extends far beyond the realm of doctors, veterinarians, and ecologists. Public health professionals, lawmakers, engineers, sociologists, and business leaders all have an impact on our day to day lives, from the water we drink to the air we breathe. One Health looks beyond the immediate problem to identify the precipitating factor and determine the chain of events that led to the current issue. From there, we work backwards with these stakeholders to rectify the issue and prevent it from occurring again.

While this sounds logical and relatively straight forward, we do not practice this approach in most fields of medicine. We have learned to identify and solve problems within our field, often failing to recognize and remediate the source of said issue. Doctors help Lyme disease patients by prescribing three weeks of antibiotics and providing information about how to prevent future infections. This may provide a short term solution, but ultimately fails to reconcile the larger issue at hand.

Tufts One Health seeks to change this mentality. Founded in the fall of 2013, a dedicated group of students has been working to promote the concept of One Health at Tufts. Educating the undergraduate and graduate student populations and changing the nature of health learning have been hallmarks of the initiative. Our university is uniquely positioned to become the leader in the field of One Health. With a school of veterinary medicine, clinical medicine, dentistry, public health, nutrition, biomedical engineering, and law and diplomacy; collectively Tufts represents One Health.

To allow students to take full advantage of these resources, the One Health student team has proposed numerous changes to the institutional structure and curriculum. Primarily, we believe students should have the ability to enroll in classes outside of their affiliated school. Students should not be deprived of interdisciplinary learning merely because their school does not offer a course that exists elsewhere in the University.

A second goal of the student group concerns the establishment of a secondary One Health major on the undergraduate campus. In September, we submitted a proposal to the Clinical and Translational Science Institute at Tufts outlining the development and establishment of a secondary One Health major. This major would include courses in the field of Biology, Ecology, Public Health, Epidemiology, and Zoonotic Disease.

We are happy to report the University has been extremely responsive to the proposed changes and is actively working with the student team to meet these goals. One Health truly represents the future of all medical professions. If you are interested in learning more about One Health, please consider the newly developed “Introduction to One Health” course offered by the Community Health Department. To become involved with the One Health student team, please e-mail john.ramatowski@tufts.edu for more information.

John Ramatowski, Tufts 2016

John Ramatowski, ’16

Global Health & Innovation Conference

We recently received an announcement about the upcoming 12th annual Global Health & Innovation Conference at Yale on March 28-29, 2015. They are currently accepting social enterprise abstracts for presentation, as well as applications for the $10,000 and $5,000 GHIC Innovation Prize.

Global Health & Innovation Conference

Presented by Unite For Sight, 12th Annual Conference

Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

Saturday, March 28 – Sunday, March 29, 2015

http://www.uniteforsight.org/conference

“A Meeting of Minds”–CNN

The Global Health & Innovation Conference is the world’s largest global health conference and social entrepreneurship conference.  This must-attend, thought-leading conference annually convenes 2,200 leaders, changemakers, students, and professionals from all fields of global health, international development, and social entrepreneurship.  Register by January 31 to secure the lowest registration rate: http://www.uniteforsight.org/conference

Interested in presenting at the conference? Submit a social enterprise pitch abstract for consideration.  Present your early-stage idea, program, or organization to the audience, and then receive guidance, advice, and mentoring from an expert panel. The GHIC Innovation Prize offers two cash awards in the amounts of $10,000 and $5,000 to the two best social enterprise pitches.

250 Speakers: Engage with 250 speakers in lectures, panels, workshops, and mentoring sessions. See the complete list of conference speakers as well as the conference schedule.  The keynote speakers include:

  • “What Project Runway Teaches Us About Creativity, Discomfort and Entrepreneurial Success,” Ned Breslin, Chief Executive Officer, Water For People
  • “Healthcare in the Age of Climate Change,” Gary Cohen, President and Co-Founder, Health Care Without Harm
  • Jeffrey Sachs, PhD, Director of Earth Institute, Columbia University; Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, Professor of Health Policy and Management, Columbia University; Special Advisor to Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon
  • Sonia Ehrlich Sachs, MD, MPH, Director of Health, Millennium Village Project, Earth Institute, Columbia University
  • ​See the complete list of 250 conference speakers.
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