Conferences: GLC Reaching Excellence in HMP Symposium and Net Impact Conference @ Ross

Saurabh Vyas

Farewell to Fall,

I am writing this sitting by a huge glass window at a cafe I usually frequent to get my daily fuel – coffee. The weather in the past few days in Ann Arbor has been lovely, and I must say this has been a great Fall with lots of sunshine, a weather to envy and go for a run… As much as I would love to just be outside and soak up the sun, I have been quite caught up with a number of events over the past couple of days. My finance exam was only a fraction of that. One of the biggest events that I am excited about is the upcoming GLC Reaching Excellence in HMP symposium. As I had mentioned in my last blog post (which has been a while ago), the event is all set to be the biggest event at the School of Public Health attracting alumni of the Health Management and Policy program from all over the country. On last count there were more than 600 delegates already registered, consisting of students, alumni and distinguished speakers like Dr. Donald Berwick (Administrator of CMS), John Griffith (distinguished Professor in HMP department), Beth McGlynn (Asso. director RAND corp.), Stephen Shortell (Dean of UC Berkeley School of Public Health) among others. More details regarding the speakers can be found at - http://www.sph.umich.edu/hmp/glc/reaching_excellence/speakers.html The symposium is on November 5th at the Mendelssohn theater in the Michigan League, followed by tailgate and a football game the next day.

So, what makes this symposium so special? For me, there are three major reasons which make it very exciting. First, with the current health reform debate ( I am still unsure if things will actually be ‘implemented’ – more on that in my next post), there are a lot of ideas regarding the implementation and integration with the current health system. This event will be a great platform to hear and even discuss the effects of reform from various healthcare angles – be it provider, insurance, or life-sciences. Second, the biggest alumni event for HMP Department, it is an amazing opportunity to meet and get inspired from alumni around the country, at a single location itself !! It is an unparalleled chance to expand your network. Third, for the students looking for internships, and job opportunities, it provides a platform to meet leaders of organizations and learn more about the organization, and may be they will find something that ‘clicks’ and ‘love’.

Another conference, which starts tomorrow is at the Ross Business School – Net Impact 2010; which will focus on issues ranging from microfinance to social entrepreneurship and corporate sustainability.

As the days pass, the weather will get colder. Though I had vowed to capture the Fall this year with my camera as much as possible, I have fallen behind on that front. But here is a photo that is a glimpse into the beauty of Fall. The photo was taken at the main Diag near the Graduate Library.

Emotional Roller-coaster

 

Saurabh Vyas

 

Hi,

It has been a little more than a month since the second-year of school started, and it will be an understatement if I say… it has been hectic… very very hectic.

As I write my first blog post, I had a chance to reflect upon the most important things currently going on in my life. And if you are wondering where the title of this post comes from, then its from the sheer delight and happiness of being involved with the organizing of the biggest HMP alumni event – Reaching Excellence in HMP, and spearheading the Students Engaged in Global Health activities for the upcoming year; and the low-point of this roller-coaster has been a more personal experience which I would like to share.

University of Michigan is a place filled with people from different fields, interests, cultures… But, there is a common string as you find an infectious enthusiasm, passion to excel and achieve something worthwhile. I must say I have been impressed by many people whom I have met, but perhaps the person whose passion for global health really moved me was my late friend Sujal Parikh. An m4 medical school student, he was involved with Physicians for Human Rights, UAEM, UVP and the Center for Global Health, and was a natural leader in the field. With his immense passion, Suj was definitely going to be a leader in infectious diseases research and international health issues. Alas, the news of his unfortunate accident while on a Fogarty International research trip to Uganda, had us worrying for his well-being since past week. And finally the news all of us were dreading came in a couple of days back… The young and dynamic leader whom we all loved, met with an untimely and unfortunate demise. Memories, experiences and stories are all that remain… and over the next couple of weeks, we will be paying a tribute to him in the best way we can… I would like everyone who reads this post, to say a silent prayer blessing for the peace of his soul and well-being of his family.

More on Suj by Center for Global Health - http://www.globalhealth.umich.edu/sujalparikh.html

On the other hand, the HMP department is gearing up for the Reaching Excellence symposium. With more than 480 alumni already registered it is going to be an event to look forward to, not only for networking but for inspiration. The chief keynote speaker is Don Berwick (Presidential nominee as Chief of CMS).

I will share more about the symposium in my next post over the weekend. Till then, wishing you all good health…

-SV

 

 

Mystery Meat

Tiffany Yang

What are kids eating in school?

I remember as a kid getting one of those trays with a carton of milk, a main dish (no vegetarian options back then, at least at my school), a side of carrot sticks or mushy peas, and maybe some canned fruit cocktail. All of it was up to nutrition standards set forth by the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National School Lunch Program (which public and not-for-profit private schools can choose to participate in) so I was definitely getting my caloric, vitamin, etc. needs. However, the food was not appetizing at all. OK. I take that back a little bit. It was a little exciting to me because I never got to eat “American” food at home so it was interesting (for a while) to eat fruit cocktail (yuck) and salibury steak (….).

Maybe I have strange notions about how things would have changed from when I was a child to what kids are eating these days, but it looks like not much has changed. This blog follows a teacher as she bravely eats what is being served in the school cafeteria. And it is not pretty. She concedes that most nutrition guidelines are being met with the lunches, but that they are just horrible. Some foods aren’t even completely thawed before they’re served (like the fruit cups) and everything seems to be packaged individually. This really confuses/angers me. When I had lunch, we got everything plopped onto a compartmentalized tray. It looks like this school just has one smooth tray and everything is in their own little shrink-wrapped or packaged bundle. This is a ridiculous waste of non-recyclable products (styrofoam, saran-wrap, plastic containers and trays, etc.). I guess I can kind of see them trying to reduce cross-contamination of foods when you have a big vat of it, but, honestly, I think individual packages are are such a waste (especially when you have a huge school population and this is happening everyday).

There are some advocates for reforming school meals, though, and they are starting to get some attention in the media. Jamie Oliver, a chef, is advocating meals that are less processed, freshly prepared,and local if possible. Alice Waters, of Chez Panisse fame, basically started the local farm to school idea with the edible schoolyard project where kids help grow foods that can be used in their school. Ann Arbor public schools picked up on this idea a few years ago and integrated The Agrarian Adventure into their school. The Agrarian Adventure consists of programs that expose, teach, and encourage students to gain knowledge about the where their food comes from, how to create a relationship with the foods they eat, and understanding the impact food has on their health. As for their school lunches, The Agrarian Adventure helped foster a collaboration between the public schools and the Ann Arbor Farm-to-School program to bring local fruits and vegetables to the school lunches.

So, while my school lunches were pretty dreary and many current school lunches are unappetizing, the hope is that proper nutrition as well as acceptable taste, texture, and (hopefully) environmental concerns such as packaging, local, sustainable, organic, etc., can play a bigger role in the foods that students are eating everyday.

Teen Health Promoter Story on Michigan Radio

Carrie Rheingans

A story on the local public radio station recently piqued my interest, because it was about a local community organization that I have worked with in the past. Migrant Health Promotion is a non-governmental organization that works to improve health in farmworker and border communities. I’ve worked with MHP to do some education around HIV, training of the teen health promoters, and HIV testing. Their teen peer health promoter program is really great at educating the teens themselves, and also at educating community members.

This radio story was done by the Michigan Radio Arts Reporter, who wrote about the teens being able to use theatrical techniques and be creative in their work. As a health educator, I love this style of peer education. As mentioned in the article, with communities that may have a low literacy level, it’s easier to do non-written education. Additionally, some members of the communities speak only English or Spanish, so having the shows in both languages is good approach. This style of health education also allows taboo topics to be discussed, which I appreciate as an HIV educator.

Workshop About Identity w/Peruvian Teen Health Promoters

Carrie Rheingans

One of the most fun and interesting parts of my internship in Peru was doing a training with Via Libre’s teen peer health promoters about how their identities may impact their work. The teen peer health promoters have had some trainings in various techniques of counseling, health topics, and working with community members. As an intern, I got to sit in on some of these sessions and participate. After a couple of these, the staff asked me if I wanted to lead a training on my own. Naturally I said yes!

While an undergrad at U-M, I was a facilitator for three semesters for Project Community, a sociology course that uses peer facilitators, and we discussed identity often in our training. I learned that we really had to consider how we might be perceived when doing our work, and I thought the teens might benefit from this knowledge also.

Identity Training with Teen Peer Health Educators

We started with an interactive game of them trying to guess my identities as a group. I sat in the middle of everyone and asked them to guess how I identified my race, age, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, gender, etc. I told them I wouldn’t be offended by anything they said, and we got to talk about what types of ways people could identify, especially in Peru. I learned that there are definitely different ways that people self-identify various identities in Peru. The Peruvian government doesn’t take as detailed racial demographics as the US, so people have resorted to defining people’s race and ethnicity by geographic regions: coast, mountains, and jungle. The image above shows us trying to come up with all the words people use to describe some identities.

When we were talking about whether we should take into account someone’s identities when we do our peer education, the teens’ first reactions were to say that everyone is equal and we should treat everyone the same. One teen then said that maybe if we know one of our peers is gay and we know we have a gay health promoter on our team, maybe that peer would feel more comfortable talking to our gay team member. That set off the thought cogs in the health promoters’ heads – I could practically see them thinking of all sorts of situations where identities matter. What a great ‘ah-hah!’ moment! The teens told me they really liked that training afterwards and that they know they’ll use it in the field.

Discussing how and why identity matters as peer health promoters

HIV Outreach and Testing in Coastal Peru

Carrie Rheingans

I went with Proyecto SOMOS at Via Libre for a weekend trip to do HIV outreach, education and rapid testing in a few sites south of Lima. You can see on this Google Map where we went (to the best of my ability…). Proyecto SOMOS is a program that targets men who have sex with men (MSM in English, HSH in Spanish) and trans women (male to female) to get tested for HIV and connects them with a local case manager and doctors if the result comes back as positive.

Carrie working the outreach table in a Pisco market

It was a fun trip overall, despite driving so far (8 hours to get back from Nazca!). Here is a picture of me at the outreach table in Pisco. We were in a very busy market area, surrounded by stalls selling CDs/DVDs, fruit, ceviche, as well as a bunch of hair salons. We were partnering with a hair salon that is known to have a lot of MSM and trans women clients, which was referred to us by our health promoter based in Pisco. I definitely got a lot of looks from people who looked like they were thinking ‘what the heck is this gringa doing here?!’

Hanging out with Edwar in the mobile unit

Edwar (not a typo) is the main HIV test counselor on the ground in the Pisco/Ica/Nazca area. He works with all the locally-based health promoters in the region and attends doctor appointments with many of our clients. He will be attending the confirmatory test appointment at the local health clinic with all three positives we got (out of over 70 tests that weekend).

Mr. Condom inviting you to get a free, rapid, confidential HIV test in Nazca

This sign, along with the sign we hung on the outreach table that said ‘free HIV and syphilis tests’, was really disconcerting to me at first. In the work I’ve done before this weekend, we don’t normally scream out who we are. We try to keep ourselves low-key, so people watching from far away who see someone they know go to the van, they don’t start making assumptions. We definitely got a lot of grannies stopping by in this plaza asking me what was going on. I had to explain what HIV even was too, which was also interesting.

The Proyecto SOMOS mobile unit and display table

Jose Luis and Marcos were the two Via Libre staff members I traveled with. They go on this trip every two weeks, so they’re used to the drive, the 15-hour days, etc.

Soccer field where we stopped

We went to many sites each day, including some very rural areas. One place we went, we had to build the road up a bit for the mobile unit to pass! This is a new soccer field that our local health promoter knew about that she visits a lot to talk to the guys about HIV testing. We just pulled our mobile unit up next to it and invited anyone who wanted to come get tested. Once they saw that they got a lot of free supplies, they were fighting to see who would get tested next!