Name: Paul
Email:
Web Site: http://www.globalpulsejournal.com
Bio: Paul Johnson is a fourth-year medical student at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. He currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Global Pulse Journal, and plans to pursue a career in neurology.
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SUSTAINABLE CONNECTIONS & COLLABORATIONS FOR HEALTH & HUMAN RIGHTS
January 24th, 2012In October of 2010, Sujal Parikh, an associate editor-in-chief of the Global Pulse, medical student at the University of Michigan, and Fogarty Scholar in Uganda passed away unexpectedly. His colleagues at the University of Michigan organized a global health symposium in his honor, as global health was a major interest for Sujal. An announcement for the second symposium in his honor follows.
SUSTAINABLE CONNECTIONS & COLLABORATIONS FOR HEALTH & HUMAN RIGHTS
A joint conference of:
The 2nd Annual University of Michigan Sujal Parikh Memorial Symposium for Health & Social Justice
and
The Physicians for Human Rights National Conference
This conference serves as an opportunity to connect students, researchers, and professionals in a variety of fields, ranging from law, health professional, business, to public policy and beyond. The goal is to bring together a diverse audience to share, learn, and foster lasting collaborations among the variety of sectors that are working to further the health of populations globally and locally through the defense of equity and human rights.
Featuring keynote speakers:
Drs. Arash and Kamiar Alaei
Iranian doctors, and brothers, imprisoned for over two years for their work on fighting HIV/AIDS.
Additional presentation topics include:
Climate Change and Health
Youth Violence
Human Trafficking
Global Health Supply Chain Management
Social Entrepreneurship
and more…
March 24-25th, 2012
Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
University of Michigan School of Public Health
Ann Arbor, Michigan
For Information, participant registration, and abstract submission: www.sujalsymposium.org
For more information about the keynote speakers: www.iranfreethedocs.org
ABSTRACTS DUE FEBRUARY 15TH, 2012
Themes of interested for abstracts include:
Global health and/or human rights education initiatives
Innovative programs to promote equity
Health of vulnerable/underserved populations
Effective advocacy campaigns targeted at promoting health as a human right
Interdisciplinary models of collaboration to promote social justice
Please contact Lesley Everett (lesleyae@med.umich.edu) with any questions or for further information about the event.
Slate Profiles Melinda Gates
December 11th, 2011Today the Slate news website posted a profile of Melinda Gates, who, along with husband Bill Gates, run the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The couple are spearheading the fight against poverty and tropical disease by devoting 90% of their vast wealth to the cause. You can read this interesting article here:
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/ft/2011/12/melinda_gates_discusses_fighting_poverty_in_the_developing_world_.html
Global Pulse Now Accepting Applications!
May 6th, 2011Interested in being an editor for the Global Pulse Journal? Apply here.
Applications may be submitted by any medical student who is also an AMSA member. Also required are enthusiasm, a few free hours each month, and a good sense of humor.
Responsibilities of editors at the Global Pulse Journal are to:
* correspond with authors and edit 1-2 submissions for quarterly publication
* interview an individual whose work in global health you look up to
* attend the annual AMSA national convention to meet with Global Pulse staff
* participate in quarterly conference calls
* participate in the on-going conversation that occurs between Global Pulse staff, readers, and authors between issues
Benefits of working for the journal include opportunities:
* to interact with a diverse group of student from around the world interested in global health
* to keep up to date with global health topics
* to shape the conversation about global health among medical students
* to interview some very interesting people
* to work with a dynamic team of medical student editors to create our publication
Submissions must be received by Monday, June 13.
If you have any questions regarding the application process, please contact Paul Johnson, the Editor in Chief, at submission.gp@gmail.com.
New Edition of the Global Pulse
April 19th, 2011The Spring edition of the Global Pulse Journal is online! Read it now at www.globalpulsejournal.com!
TED Ideas for Improved Patient Participation
March 7th, 2011When I saw this brief video clip about patient education and the way that patients go about their own health education, including accessing their own medical records, I was geeked — this video describes a great step forward in integrating patients medical records and lab data with preventive health, and at the same time, making health information easy to understand. The focus is on patient empowerment, which I think is great. The video is short and worth watching.
DARA’s Climate Vulnerability Monitor Measures Casualties of Climate Change
January 6th, 2011Coinciding with the United Nations Climate Change Convention held in Cancun last month, the non-profit organization, Development Assistance Research Associates (DARA) released the first definitive study measuring the impact of climate change on global health and human development. The Climate Vulnerability Monitor (CVM) predicts that climate change could contribute to as many as 5 million deaths by the year 2020. The CVM also suggests that if global warming isn’t slowed an additional million will die every year by 2030.
DARA’s study accumulates leading research on climate change in order to give a global assessment of its effects. The CVM demonstrated that global climate change impacts human development in 4 different ways health, habitat loss, weather disasters, and economic stress. In terms of human health, climate change has strongly affected the spread of life-threatening, climate-sensitive diseases like diarrhea and malaria. The rise in sea level and the effects of desertification have contributed to habitat loss, while weather disasters like hurricanes and flooding have directly caused the loss of many human lives. Economic stresses, like the loss of agricultural productivity resulting from droughts, were another climate impact that the CVM measured and accounted for. The study showed that almost every single country is vulnerable to the effects of at least one identified impact.
Asian and Sub-Saharan African countries are by far the worst affected, and women and children are the groups most vulnerable. The study reported that 80% of climate-related deaths are exclusively children living in either of these areas, and 99% of mortalities occur in developing countries. The CVM estimated that at the current rate, climate change contributes to some 350,000 deaths each year. In addition to estimates of human loss, the CVM estimates that climate change costs the global economy about 150 billion dollars. What’s more, half of this economic loss has occurred in industrialized countries.
Based in Madrid, Spain, DARA is an organization that works to improve the quality and effectiveness of aid given to the world’s most vulnerable populations that are effected by climate change, armed conflict, and other disasters. In preparing and funding the study, DARA worked in tandem with the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a global partnership founded by the president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, which brings together the countries most adversely affected by climate change. The countries included in the partnership are Bangladesh, Barbados, Bhutan, Ghana, Rwanda, Tanzania, Vietnam, the Maldives, Kenya, Kiribati, and Nepal.
The purpose of the DARA/Climate Vulnerable Forum study was to demonstrate the alarming effects of human-induced climate change such that policy-makers around the world will be more committed to urgent change. The study also included a set of 50 suggested changes that can be implemented cost-effectively in order to stem the rising tide of climate-related human loss. The entire study, including findings, country profiles, methodology, and recommendations, can be viewed in PDF format here.
This guest post is contributed by Alisa Gilbert. She welcomes your comments at: alisagilbert599@gmail.com.
The New York Times on Somalia’s Child Soldiers
June 20th, 2010The New York Times has an excellent short video in its library on child soldiers in Somalia. Interestingly, the NYT video points out that many of these young soldiers actually work for the Somali government, which receives financial support from the US. You can read more about child soldiers in this 2009 Global Pulse article by Laura Janneck, Girls and Boys Gone to War: Gender and Mental Health of Child Soldiers.
Spotlight on the National Library of Medicine
June 17th, 2010The National Library of Medicine currently features an online exhibit called “Against All Odds: Making a Difference in Global Health,” which can be found here: http://apps.nlm.nih.gov/againsttheodds/exhibit/index.cfm The exhibit offers a wide range of historical material on subjects such as HIV/AIDS, Global Development, the Legacy of War, and Community Health. These exhibits display the legacy of global health from around the world, for example charting the discovery of HIV in the lab and following the story of 13 year old hemophiliac Ryan White, or the 1990 Cosmo article that described how heterosexual women were not at risk from HIV, and following up with AIDS education in Thailand. The website offers a wide variety of historical information and is well worth browsing.
http://apps.nlm.nih.gov/againsttheodds/exhibit/index.cfm
Cholera Centers Attacked
November 15th, 2009Centers for cholera treatment in northern Mozambique have been vandalized recently due to a belief that they are actually causing cholera, rather than treating it. The misunderstanding is partly blamed on the similarity between the Portuguese words for Cholera and Chlorine, since Chlorine is used to treat water and prevent cholera. (Mozambique was a Portuguese colony until the mid-1970’s).
See the full story here: http://allafrica.com/stories/200911120948.html
Resources for Pursuing Global Health
July 30th, 2009Are you interested in Global Health or International Medicine? The AMA’s student ethics journal, Virtual Mentor recently published a worthwhile article called “Beyond Medical Tourism: Authentic Engagement in Global Health” which provides good advice on how to approach Global Health from a medical student perspective. This short article is a good read for anyone considering going abroad for a ‘medical mission’ or other international health project.