The Global Pulse Journal Blog

We are very proud of GP editor Jennifer Weinberg, who was the theme editor for the current issue of the AMA’s Virtual Mentor journal!   The theme for the March 2010  issue is global health ethics in practice.  Read the full issue here, or start with any of the following:

• Jennifer’s introduction: Global Health Ethics at Home and Abroad
• The WHO Staging System for HIV/AIDS by Jennifer Weinberg and Carrie Kovarik
• The Physician-Researcher’s Dilemma by Hana Akselrod
• Global Health Ethics and Professionalism Education at Medical Schools by Sujal Parikh

This is a guest post by Vanessa Coleman, coordinator of the International Women’s Health Leadership Institute and the International Women’s Health Working Group.

This New Year as you set down and make resolutions, we at AMSA urge you to make another one. Ghandi once said “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Imagine how much of a difference we could make in our practices, medical schools and in our communities if each of us 30,000 AMSA members made this resolution? Apply for AMSA’s inaugural International Women’s Leadership Institute and BE THE CHANGE.

Read on for details. Read the rest of this entry →

The following article was first published on the PLoS Medicine Blog, “Speaking of Medicine“, and is cross-posted here.

The role of medical students in limiting the spread of antimicrobial resistance

Adam Castaño‡, Sujal Parikh‡ and Eunice Yu, medical students at the University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA (‡ These authors contributed equally to this post). Contact Adam Castano on acastano@umich.edu.

Nowhere in the world is free from the spread of drug-resistant bacteria, parasites and viruses.  The World Health Organization (WHO) Global Alliance for Patient Safety has recognized the dual problems posed by the increasing incidence of drug-resistant bacteria and the decline in antibiotic innovation.  For the past two years, a working group of policy makers, scientists, epidemiologists, and economists have assembled at several international meetings to outline an international strategy to address antimicrobial resistance (1). Policy recommendations, to be launched in 2010, will establish new roles for governments, public health departments, industry, and physicians as primary stakeholders in AMR prevention and alleviation.  Physicians prescribe antimicrobials, contribute to the spread of pathogens (particularly hospital-acquired infections), educate patients about appropriate use of antimicrobials, perform research, and set research agendas.  Medical students are being trained in an era where the toll of antimicrobial resistant infections is evident on a daily basis.  As future physicians, they have the potential to help to address this problem.  Here, we describe new leadership roles for medical students within their medical schools, hospitals, communities, states, and countries to alleviate the problem of AMR.

The role of medical students in medical schools Read the rest of this entry →

This month’s issue of Academic Medicine includes a series of essays addressing the question, “How should academic medicine contribute to peace-building efforts around the world?” This timely question is especially compelling in the United States, as national discourse continues about troop levels in Afghanistan, military strategy in Iraq, and whether and how the US should help stop the genocide in Darfur. Read the rest of this entry →

Are 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.

Good morning on this May 1st, 2009, and good bye debt! Does the burden of debt loom over your head and weigh you down more than your book-laden backpack? Do you wish that the price of going to school didn’t cost you your dreams of being a family doc? Do you want to contribute your skills as a physician and serve your local and global communities, but just can’t afford to take the time off???? Make your voice heard, and email your congressman. Let them know we’re drowning in debt, and will not take it anymore.  Below is an action alert from Mary-Carol at AMSA.

Dear AMSA,

This last March, a few of our Representatives and Senators stood up to decrease the educational debt burden for future physicians by introducing a bill that would reinstate a pathway to defer loan repayment until after residency for the majority of medical residents.

This May, Congress is writing a huge piece of legislation that will reform our health care system – and impact our chosen career field for decades to come.

Your Senators and Representative need to hear from you that the cost of medical education must be addressed in this legislation.

Click here to send an email to your Congressperson.

Sound pretty good to be able to defer your loans during residency if you’re having trouble paying them? Well, don’t get used to it – as your school’s financial offices should have told you, last summer, the passage of the College Cost Reduction Act terminated this pathway for loan deferment.

As AMSA members, we have a responsibility to do everything we can to make medicine a feasible field for students from all walks of life – we need to remove the burden of intimidating student debt from the equation. Congress needs to hear from you that reinstating the economic hardship deferral pathway is a good thing, and that including comprehensive measures to decrease the cost of medical education in this month’s health reform legislation will be even better.

Thanks – let’s see this through!

– Mary Carol

Click here to send an email to your Congressperson.

Do your part to include medical school debt in the upcoming health care reform.

The Kaiser Family Foundation has a new resource for global health. While new, it features plenty of handy information for us global advocates, such as a map of cumulative cases of H1N1 influenza (the subtype of influenza A causing swine flu), convenient fact sheets on U.S. Global Health Policy, and a policy tracker in which you can follow up on the latest global health legislation.