“The most memorable experiences during my WHO internship included having the opportunity to partake in public health projects at a global level.”

DMU osteopathic medicine student Michelle John

Food + health + global scale = much to discuss

Participants in the Oct. 14 global health conference on campus will have plenty to chew on as they explore the connectivity between health and food on a global scale.

Sponsored by the Heartland Global Health Consortium, which DMU helped create in 2007, the conference will feature keynote speaker Tom Vilsack, secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and former Iowa governor. Dr. Bill Foege, senior fellow with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, will speak on global public health and nutrition. The event also will include panels of experts and students from the consortium member institutions.

The global health conference will be held in conjunction with the annual World Food Prize celebration and symposium in Des Moines. The conference will begin with lunch at 11:30 a.m. in the University’s Medical Education Center and conclude by 4:30 p.m.

For a full schedule, event registration and information about the consortium, visit www.heartlandconsortium.org.

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Art exhibit makes a difference in women’s health

DMU is helping bring to Iowa an art exhibit that uses visual art to communicate a global message on women’s health. “Art for Health” images will be displayed in conjunction with the global health conference on campus and the World Food Prize celebration in Des Moines the week of Oct. 13. It will be the exhibit’s first appearance in the Midwest.

Commissioned in 2006 by the World Health Organization, the Art for Health exhibition strives to increase awareness and promote action toward improving sexual and reproductive health around the world. Artist Elisabetta Farina’s bold pop-art images show the talents and pride of women around the world, even as they often face challenges and barriers to health care.

For more information about Art for Health, visit www.who.int/pmnch/activities/a4h_project/en/.

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Abaton reflects a worldly perspective

A goat given as a gift to a village visitor; a beloved aunt in a time of cholera; a Kenyan chief offering a wife to an American guest; an old woman begging in the streets of Mumbai, India; a five-year-old hemophiliac boy in Juarez, Mexico; a U.S. envoy waiting out the civil war in Cambodia; and a doctor set to improve life for the poverty-plagued people of Mali.

These are just some of the people highlighted in the 2009 Abaton, DMU’s award-winning medical humanities and arts journal. This year’s edition is focused on global health and offers a special premium: a CD of music and musings on the importance of global health efforts by internationally renowned operatic bass-baritone Simon Estes.

Des Moines University will distribute Abaton to all alumni and friends. In addition, the World Health Organization will sell copies of the journal to raise funds for its efforts in improving maternal and child health around the world.

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AOA conference, DMU focus on global health

When members of the American Osteopathic Association gather for their annual conference in New Orleans, Nov. 1-5, they’ll get some worldly views with the event’s global health focus. Des Moines University plans to celebrate that theme by highlighting its growing global health program and opportunities for AOA members to get involved.

“DMU’s global health program exposes students to a different brand of medicine,” says Yogesh Shah, M.D., associate dean for global health at DMU. “Alumni and friends can participate in these powerful opportunities by supporting the program financially or joining us as mentors on global health service trips.”

More than 130 DMU students have participated in these trips since the program began in 2007, providing care for under-served people in more than 20 countries. DMU is increasing these experiences for all DMU students through its own efforts and collaborations with the World Health Organization, other medical institutions and fellow members of the Heartland Global Health Consortium, which DMU helped create.

AOA conference-goers can learn more about the University’s global health program by visiting the DMU booth in the exhibit hall. DMU alumni are invited to attend the DMU luncheon at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside on Nov. 2, 1:15-2:30 p.m., in Ballroom C. DMU also will host an alumni reception that evening, 6:30-8 p.m., in the Palace Café, 605 Canal Street. For more information, visit www.dmu.edu/alumni or contact the alumni office, 515-271-1463.

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DMU students learn, contribute in WHO internships

DMU students Kevin Dixon,
Kalie Brenneman and
Michelle John at the
WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland

Michelle John, Kalie Brenneman, Kevin Dixon and Kendall Blair were DMU’s first — but not last — students to participate in the research-oriented internships, working primarily in maternal and child health. John and Brenneman, for example, interned with Meena Cabral de Mello in WHO’s child and adolescent health and

Development department, conducting a systematic review of early stimulation on the development of low birth-weight premature infants in developing countries. They also produced an information brief on promoting adolescent sexual and reproductive health through the media in low-income countries.

“The three most memorable experiences during my internship included interacting with Meena Cabral de Mello and other interns at the World Health organization, having the opportunity to partake in public health projects at a global level, and sightseeing in Switzerland,” John says.

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New national global health consortium of universities includes DMU

The number of students enrolled in global health programs in universities across the United States and Canada has doubled in the past three years. That’s led American universities to expand these programs at an unprecedented rate. The surge also led more than 50 North American universities — including Des Moines University — to create the Consortium of Universities for Global Health, to help organize their efforts and set a vision of global health programs.

With funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other organizations, CUGH held its first annual meeting Sept. 14-15 at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. Yogesh Shah, M.D., DMU’s associate dean of global health, was invited to join 249 other representatives from 58 universities as well as health officials from government, non-government organizations and various health and research centers. Participants discussed global health policy, challenges, roles for universities, research innovations and collaborative opportunities.

Meeting attendees also reviewed findings from a CUGH survey, the first to gauge the state of academic global health education, that showed great increases in the numbers of undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in global health and in the number of student organizations focused on global health. “The guiding principle of the consortium is to make the university a transforming force in global health,” Shah says. “We at DMU want to join that force by collaborating with other universities and organizations as well as by increasing the opportunities we offer our own students.” For more information on the CUGH, visit www.cugh.org.

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