Medical students are hoping to shed some light on the impact and breadth of global health issues with the annual Global Health Awareness Week (GHAW), organized by the 14 members of the community engagement team of the Medical Students' Association. This year's events will focus on the theme of environment and health, a topic that Charissa Ho and Julianna Deutscher, two of the organizers, hope will resonate with their peers.
"A lot of medicine in the last 20 years has been a lot of hard facts-we're talking about evidence-based medicine. That's all great, but we're now also turning our eyes to more of the humanity side of things," says Ho, a second-year student. "I think it's important to look at not just the patient itself, but the person… and making students aware of all those things that are actually impacting a patient's health as well."
GHAW 2015 will feature two presentations: one focused on Water Matters, an organization dedicated to protecting Alberta's watershed, and the other on urban planning for healthier communities.
"My thoughts on choosing Water Matters is that it's a local organization, and I like to work more on the local basis," says Ho. "Talking about protecting the watershed and how that's important to the health sector, for some people, could be misconstrued as focusing the environment versus the health care side of things, but we're trying to make those links."
The session on urban planning will help students understand how environment affects health and how something as subtle as a city layout can have huge implications. Ho notes that communities are often designed to include parks and playgrounds, abundant sidewalks and access to amenities to promote healthier lifestyles.
GHAW 2015 will also feature two fundraising events, including the annual global health education photo silent auction on March 20 in the pedway connecting the Edmonton Clinic Health Academy, University of Alberta Hospital and the Edmonton Kaye Clinic. The silent auction classically features photographs taken by medical students while on global health electives but, Ho notes, this is the first year that will include non-elective photos.
Deutscher, for one, was happy to hear the guidelines widened. She submitted several photos from a trip to Kenya that she took while completing a bachelor of science degree at Red Deer College. "When I was abroad, we had an opportunity to go to a tuberculosis clinic. I had never really been exposed to that side of health care before," she says, adding that she was considering a career in international law at the time. "It really opened my eyes that I might want to consider a career in medicine. When I got back to Canada, I closed the LSAT books and started looking at the MCAT."
Proceeds from the silent auction and the Green Beers 4 the Environment night, held on March 17 at the Pint on Whyte, will go to supporting Water Matters.
"I think the local factor is really important because a lot of people are under the impression that global health only incorporates going abroad and working as a doctor in Africa for a month," says Deutscher. "A lot of people don't realize that global health encompasses a lot more than that. It's about being engaged in communities. It's about having enough doctors in rural communities. It's about making sure our Aboriginal peoples have equal access to health care. That's why we wanted to [support] a local organization-to help connect global health to your local community, too."