A student and a recent graduate of DMU’s College of Health Sciences are augmenting their education with training programs on either side of the country.
Faisal Mohamed, a student in the master of public health degree program, was accepted this summer in the Minority Training Program in Cancer Control Research (MTPCCR), a joint program of the University of California- San Francisco and University of California-Los Angeles with support of the National Cancer Institute. Its purpose is to increase ethnic diversity in the field of cancer control research by encouraging minority students and master’s-trained health professionals to pursue doctoral degrees and careers in research.
Mohamed, who is from Ethiopia, participated in a five-day program designed to showcase the opportunities and need for minority researchers in cancer control. He then began a three-month internship that’s part of a five-year obesity control trial, in which he is collecting data about participating subjects’ height, weight, blood pressure and cardiac fitness. He says the internship, his DMU education and the people he met through the University “will guide me to be a better person and help me make a difference in the public health arena worldwide.”
“My long-term goal is working with the World Health Organization or Centers for Disease Control, especially with minority groups or undeveloped countries to address their health problems,” he notes.
Meanwhile, Rebecca Williams, who completed her master’s degree in public health this spring, is in Bronx, NY, in a 12-month Graduate Healthcare Administration Training Program (GHATP) at the James J. Peters Veterans Administration Medical Center. She has rotations in different areas of the hospital. One of her projects was to analyze its compensation and pension program; in another, she helped patients enroll in the center’s home telehealth program.
“My plan is to be a leader in both public health and health care administration,” she says. “The program was the perfect opportunity to get hands-on work experience where I would also be taught firsthand by hospital administrators and leaders in government health care. “The faculty, my advisers and DMU program directors have all taught me to be passionate about the work we are doing, dedicated to the movement we are experiencing in health care and the flexibility and professionalism I need to enhance my career,” she adds.
