Global Pulse Blog

Today’s guest blog post by Anand Reddi was originally published yesterday in The Huffington Post. Anand Reddi was a Fulbright Scholar in 2005, assisting the Sinikithemba HIV/AIDS clinic at McCord Hospital in Durban, South Africa. Currently, Mr. Reddi is a medical student at the University of Colorado, School of Medicine. Here, he reflects on Secretary Clinton’s speech earlier this week and the importance and potential of a Global Health Service Corp.

Stay tuned to Global Pulse Blog for more views on this monumental speech and its implications.

Yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton declared the U.S. government’s intent to create an “AIDS-free generation.” Secretary Clinton outlined a bold plan to reduce new HIV-infections, globally, including the eradication of pediatric HIV by 2015. This new strategy builds upon the success of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the U.S. program that addresses HIV/AIDS in resource-limited settings.

A notable feature of Secretary Clinton’s “AIDS-free generation” initiative is to strengthen healthcare systems in sub-Saharan Africa. Clinton stated:

“We know we can’t create an AIDS-free generation by dictating solutions from Washington. Our in-country partners — including governments, NGOs, and faith-based organizations — need to own and lead their nation’s response. So we are working with ministries of health and local organizations to strengthen their health systems so they can take on an even broader range of health problems.”

Strengthening African healthcare systems is a view echoed by many eminent voices in the global health community. Last year, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences authored a report entitled: “Preparing for the Future of HIV/AIDS in Africa: A Shared Responsibility.” The IOM report recommended the urgent need to increase African healthcare workforce capacity to address the HIV epidemic.

I offer Secretary Clinton a solution to assist African healthcare workforces and ensure the success of the “AIDS-free generation” initiative. Last year, in an editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine, Vanessa Kerry, Sara Auld, and Paul Farmer reintroduced the idea of enacting a Global Health Service Corp (GHSC). The GHSC, compromised of U.S. healthcare professionals, would provide medical education and technical assistance to enhance the healthcare workforces in low-income countries. The GHSC’s goal would “go beyond that of filling a human resource void to focus on infrastructure development, knowledge transfer, and capacity building.” The GHSC could also offer partial student loan forgiveness for U.S. corps members who engage in service abroad for a specified time period similar to the loan forgiveness offered by the National Health Service Corp.

To address the African healthcare workforce shortage, I encourage Secretary Clinton to adopt the principles of the GHSC. The success of the “AIDS-free generation” initiative depends on the availability of skilled healthcare workers in African resource limited settings. Additionally, the eventual transition from a U.S. to African led HIV/AIDS response requires the U.S. to teach and train healthcare personnel in recipient countries through collaborative partnerships that eventually lead to African ownership of their domestic healthcare needs.

Some may argue that enacting the GHSC, especially in the era of U.S. government austerity measures, is not prudent. However, the funding for the GHSC already exists. In addition to HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, PEPFAR’s congressional mandate requires the program to “strengthen partner government [healthcare] capacity to lead the response to this epidemic and other health demands.” Last year alone, PEPFAR committed over $734 million in healthcare capacity building initiatives.

Global health is the moral litmus test of our time. As Secretary Clinton asserted: “An AIDS-free generation would be one of the greatest gifts the United States could give to our collective future.” The U.S. should enact the GHSC to ensure the success and sustainability of the “AIDS-free generation” initiative.

-Anand Reddi, The Huffington Post

If you are interested in supporting the Global Health Service Corp please sign the petition to show your support. http://www.globalhealthservicecorps.org/index.php/petition/

Additionally, the Medical Student Section of the American Medical Association is considering a resolution endorsing the GHSC at its 2011 Interim Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Part of the editorial staff of Global Pulse met recently at the amazing Physicians for Human Rights’s National Student Conference from January 31-February 1st at Brown University. From left to right, Sujal Parikh, Hana Akselrod, & your truly. Yes, we have selected a new editorial board! We will tell you all about them soon enough. Hana is first year med student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. Sujal had such a good time last year, that he decided to stay as editor for this year.

Expect the blog to become much more active with our new members!

I am extremely honored to announce the “Spring 2008″ issue of Global Pulse (GP), AMSA’s International Health Journal, is now online!

http://www.globalpulsejournal.com

All of us at GP are excited with this issue. We received incredible submissions from medical students, literally around the world, and from other disciplines as well.

Here is just a sample of what we feature in this issue:

- An exclusive, in-depth interview with Dr. Joxel Garcia, the Assistant Secretary for Health of the U.S., the Medical Director in the Regular Corps of the Public Health Service, and official U.S. representative to the World Health Organization (WHO)!

- WHO’s Global Initiative for Emergency and Surgical Care

- Telemedicine in Bhutan

- Accounts from Kenya, South Africa, and the Amazon Jungle

- A fantastic photo essay from Guatemala

There is more, and it is available at Global Pulse!

We will update the blog, and the website, in the next couple of days. The blog has many goals, among them:
1) To further discuss and follow up topics that have been covered in Global Pulse.
2) To discuss topics that are timely and important, but have not been discussed in Global Pulse for one reason or the other. For example, it is difficult obtaining an article from a medical student in the middle of a war or conflict.
3) To provide student leaders in global health a forum in which to communicate directly to medical students. For example, writing about a relevant and timely topic regarding their area of expertise, or the organization they represent, or
of a project they have done.

GP is completely funded by AMSA (means not sponsored by Big Pharma or other third parties), entirely run by medical students (that have to study for boards and work the wards!), and like every AMSA project, we are passionate about what we do! Please forward our journal widely, and help make this exciting AMSA project even better!

This is done for YOU, the reader, and as such we would be delighted to read your comments and suggestions on our blog. Feel free to comment away!

A long time in the making, finally, here it is… the Global Pulse blog!

This blog has many goals, among them:

1) To further discuss and follow up topics that have been covered in Global Pulse.

2) To discuss topics that are timely and important, but have not been discussed in Global Pulse for one reason or the other. For example, it is difficult obtaining an article from a medical student in the middle of a war or conflict.

3) To provide student leaders in global health a forum in which to communicate directly to medical students. For example, writing about a relevant and timely topic regarding their area of expertise, or the organization they represent, or of a project they have done.

4) To cover, in real-time (or at least a couple of days later!) events that are relevant to Global Pulse, for example, this year’s AMSA convention, March 12-16, in Houston, Texas!

5) Finally, it is a way for the editors of GP to directly communicate with our readers.

We will debut this blog covering the GHAC events of the AMSA convention. GHAC stands for “Global Health Action Committee” for all of you that are not quite used to all of acronyms we use at AMSA. As the name implies, the convention will feature outstanding events related to global health, and we will try to blog about them so y’all can read about them. I arrived in Texas a couple of hours ago, and “y’all looking for a cab?” was the first thing that was hurled at me at the airport, and now I’m stuck with y’all!

Additionally, we will also discuss the events of AMSA’s first Environmental Health Leadership Institute.

We are extremely excited to expand Global Pulse with a blog. Please add us to your blogroll, or subscribe to our RSS feed, and pass the word on to your colleagues!

Julio Bracero, Editor-in-Chief, Global Pulse