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OHSU’s Global Health Center Expands Its Reach

The center, which educates medical students about global health issues, is preparing to open a program in Southeast Asia.
July 16, 2014

When Sharon Tissell, a trauma nurse, was working abroad in Uganda last year the skills she learned from the Global Health Center at Oregon Health Science University were invaluable, particularly what she learned about helping women. 

“There were a lot of women who suffered,” she said after working at the border of Uganda and Rwanda. 

Tissell participated in the Global Health Center’s Professionals’ Training in Global Health program in 2012, which included a mini course on women’s health issues, such as labor and delivery problems that can arise overseas. 

“That was helpful for me because I’m not an OB nurse,” she said. 

The OHSU Center developed in 2006 after 900 students showed up to a global health conference, and the university took notice, according to Andy Harris, interim director. 

Over the past seven years, 1,000 students have enrolled in its courses, with 44 percent of students coming from the School of Medicine and the rest from the School of Nursing, School of Dentistry, College of Pharmacy and Department of Public Health & Preventive Medicine.

The goal is to not only educate students on global health issues but prepare them for overseas experiences. 

“The world is really shrinking,” Harris said. The global health program aims to prepare students locally for the work they’ll do overseas. Most of the courses are inter-professional, with students mingling with professionals in the field. 

“It’s really a two-way education,” he said, adding students work in free clinics around Portland as well as refugees. “There’s also less distinction between local and global, and we can learn a lot about them in our own backyard,” he added, 

The courses for students include conversations in global health, health and illness in context, global health in changing environments and interdisciplinary community health and education exchange. 

International speakers participate and students help immigrants and refugees with access the medical system get physical checkups and provide other health information. The Center also offers an eight-week professional training program on everything from pediatrics to dermatology. 

“It’s for people who want to work overseas and would like to get practical training, to volunteer in low-income countries,” Harris said. “Specialists get very far removed from practicing primary care very fast and feel pretty uncomfortable looking at an ear or looking at throat.” 

For Tissell, a nurse at OSHU’s trauma ICU who travels almost exclusively with Medical Teams International, the experience was helpful. 

“I didn’t just get one perspective but I got this great array of perspectives and backgrounds and viewpoints and knowledge base that was very enriching to me,” she said. 

Next on the horizon for the Global Health Center is setting up an overseas program for students, and a partnership is being established in Southeast Asia. 

“We want our students and residents to be at well qualified centers of excellence,” Harris said, with an emphasis on safety to assure students receive a quality education while abroad. 

“That’s kind of been a big thrust to be sure that we have well qualified centers,” he said, and OHSU is also making progress with a university in Ethiopia. 

One of the most popular events at the Center is a one-day safety and security training led by Medical Teams International. Students are taken in vans and through checkpoints in a mock hostage situation where they’re blindfolded and handcuffed. 

“It’s very interesting, somewhat traumatic, but a learning experience which is probably invaluable in working overseas in today’s more hostile climate,” Harris said. 

Shelby can be reached at [email protected].  

 

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