An article in Nature looks at how the international effort to address the health crisis in the developing world is providing a wealth of career opportunities.

"It is an extremely robust job market for global-health professionals, but the challenge is finding an entry point because there's no defined career track," says Nils Daulaire, president of the Global Health Council, an alliance of global-health organizations based in Washington DC.

Virginia Gewin reports.

Click on the link below or see attached file.

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070514/full/nj7142-348a.html

A comprehensive archive of public seminars is available online on the website of the International Institute for Society and Health of University College, London. The seminars cover a broad range of topics which Alma Mata members will find interesting and useful.

Topics have included:

Risk, Resilience and Social Integration
Conflict Medicine: A Neglected Challenge
Social Inequalities in Health - New Evidence and Policy Implications

The lowdown on...the Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

Probably the most popular course for doctors wanting to practice in the tropics, the Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, or DTMH is a good way to prepare for overseas work. Most docs who travel to tropical countries will have this course on their CV and several humanitarian agencies recruit from the graduates.

What does the course entail?
It’s a three month, (six months or one year in some places) full-time postgraduate course for physicians. It aims to equip physicians with the clinical knowledge and skills to diagnose, treat and prevent common tropical diseases. It’s also useful for doctors practising travel medicine or infectious diseases outside the tropics. The course includes a element of epidemiology and public/ community health to give the doctor a grounding in social, economic and political factors influencing health in resource poor countries.

Where can I do it?
In the UK: the two options are at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. Both courses are heavily subscribed. Options further afield are Bangkok School of Tropical Medicine Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, James Cook University of Northern Queensland, Australia, Witwatersrand, South Africa and the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam. (all links below) The syllabus of these courses vary as do the length of the training.

Who can apply?
You will have a recognised medical degree and some schools ask for a minimum of two year’s postgraduate clinical experience. You may need to demonstrate proficiency in English. The Netherlands Course in Tropical Medicine is also open to nurses and midwives.

How is it taught?
DTMH includes a mixture or seminars, lectures and practical laboratory work covering:
• communicable diseases
• water supply and sanitation,
• nutrition,
• maternal and child health,
• non-communicable disease,
• population and reproductive health
• and health in emergencies.

You’ll be examined by a mixture of MCQ, essay questions and a practical exam. The pass rate is 50% and, in the UK, it is accredited by the Royal College of Physicians.

Then what?
Many doctors will go on to work overseas. Read about Dan Campion’s (Liverpool) experiences in Guatemala and Claire Collett’s work in Nigeria at http://www.almamata.net/ news/international_work in the Worldsearch interview bank. They both went on to study for Diploma in Medical Care of Catastrophes (DMCC). See http://www.apothecaries.org for more details.

Dr David Osrin did the course in Bangkok after MRCP and went on to work as a Research Fellow in Nepal for the Centre for International Child Health, London and is also interviewed on the site. LSHTM offer two add-on courses: a short course in Travel Medicine or a two-week field trip in The Gambia to gain hands-on experience.

Skillshare is carrying out research into the benefits to the UK of NHS Links with the developing world. This particular study aims to identify the impact of existing NHS links with developing countries on global health education in the UK – for health, medical and social care undergraduate and postgraduate students. The research question that guides this pilot study asks:

What, if any, is the impact of NHS Links upon global health education in the UK?

This study is undertaken by Skillshare International as a member of the Best Practice Network on Global Health, in collaboration with NHS Links (The Tropical Health and Education Trust - THET).

Ten Year Plans

With Alma Mata’s membership now 400-strong, it is now possible to use our collective weight as an advocacy tool for pushing global health into the new foundation programmes. As Rebecca Hope and Fred Martineau discussed in their Crossing Borders series, the new structure presents an opportunity to create exciting and innovative posts within the NHS career structure. But before the global health offensive can be launched, and in the spirit of our open and democratic organisation, members of the working group currently in Foundation Year 1 and those in the final stages of undergraduate study, were invited to complete the phrase “when I grow up I want to be…”.

Fifteen fascinating contributions later and we are now in a much stronger position to answer the question of what is a career in global health. This qualitative data trawl is planned as a precursor to a more comprehensive survey of all our members (now online) in due course, and allows common themes to be explored at that time. So (I hear you ask) what did they say?

Well, as if it needed saying, they are quite an ambitious bunch! Despite widely different and imaginative plans, patterns emerged and many ideas overlapped.

New training programmes for junior doctors in global health are becoming more possible

MSc programmes in International Health Policy

The Centre for International Public Health Policy at the
University of Edinburgh is setting up two new MSc programmes in
international health, starting in September 2006:

MSc public health policy (global health)
MSc public health policy (public private partnerships)

Drawing on the research of Prof Allyson Pollock and her colleagues, the programmes analyse the national and international challenge of markets within contemporary public health policy.

For more information: www.health.ed.ac.uk/CIPHP/postgraduate.

More than £1000 donated by Sheffield citizens to Doctors Without Borders’ ongoing work in Sudan

Last year, according to an acclaimed report by Médecins Sans Frontières’s (Doctors Without Borders, MSF), Sudan was among the top ten under-reported humanitarian stories; there is ongoing violence, a state of chronic instability, and only last month MSF responded to a severe Cholera outbreak in the south of the country. Nevertheless, none of this made it to the media.

A peace agreement was signed in January 2005, bringing Africa's longest-running civil war officially to an end. However, the crisis continues. MSF has been working in Sudan since 1979, and is currently tackling diseases like Malaria and Tuberculosis as well as the widespread malnutrition. Currently they have about 350 international and more than 4,500 national staff in Sudan.

Students at Sheffield University have started a group to raise awareness of the vital work of MSF and raise money for the cause. In the end of February, Dr Beresford, who has worked with MSF, came to talk to more than a 100 students about her experiences with MSF in Sudan. This inspiring talk on challenges and rewards was the launch of the student group, but also the launch for their first campaign: to collect funds for MSF’s work in Sudan. This campaign ran over three events: the talk, a joint hip hop event with Oxfam and a street collection in Sheffield city centre.

Students at Sheffield raise money for MSF's ongoing work in Sudan

Specialist training in International Public Health for all health professionals: Interview with Dr Andrew Furber

The UK Faculty of Public Health oversees the training of UK health professionals. It encourages placements overseas during the training program in public health and has approved placements worldwide.

Dr Sarah Anderson, an Specialist Registrar in Public Health said, after her placement with the Stop TB Department, the World Health Organisation: ‘I personally gained essential public health skills in a hugely stimulating environment, increased my awareness of international health issues and brought back a fresh perspective to my UK public health work.’

To bring together the many facets of public health the Faculty has developed a series of specialist interest ‘Network Groups’. These groups are web-based discussion groups designed to facilitate:
- networking between individuals (in the UK and worldwide) who share a common interest in a particular area of public health;
- the exchange of ideas, knowledge and best practice in the field of public health and within a special interest;
- communication between Network Group members and the Faculty (and vice versa).

Membership is free and open to all individuals (subject to approval) – not just Faculty members.

In the last newsletter, we outlined the current proposals of ‘Modernising Medical Careers (MMC)’, and speculated on what this could mean for a career in global health. Gaz Lewis continues his assessment with the current plans of the Royal Colleges the post foundation years and the options for working abroad in specialist training years.