Global Health and Human Rights 2013

We had invaluable opportunities to meet with and hear from policy makers at the WHO, ILO, and ICRC...

I am so grateful to the University of Geneva for providing me with this scholarship to study Global Health and Human Rights at Geneva Summer School.

This program has inspired me with invaluable perspectives in international health policy and social, behavioral, economic, and legal determinants of health that I aim to integrate into my studies and volunteer work as a medical student in the US. Under the guidance of Professors Chastonay, Stuckelberger, Kabengele, and Schulthess, themselves veterans in the field, we studied interdisciplinary issues centered on the core themes of the UN millennium development goals, health systems, and international health regulation, through seminars, discussions, and interactive working groups.

I found our course work stimulating and engaging, culminating in case studies re-evaluating outbreak incidents under the 2005 International Health Regulations. We had invaluable opportunities to meet with and hear from policy makers at the WHO, ILO, and ICRC, which is partially a reflection of Geneva's role as an international city and a hub for international health-related organizations. In the same vein, I had the pleasure of volunteering at the inaugural conference on Challenges Facing Humanitarian Action at UNIGE.

I would like to add that Dr. Brown and the GSS staff were very warm and immensely helpful from start to end – it was such a pleasure to be at UNIGE. It has been a wonderful learning experience for all of us as our classmates and professors bring such diverse perspectives on global issues, not only from different countries, but from a variety of fields and experiences.

I am very passionate about global health, and I sincerely hope that we as a class, rather than complacently accepting such a formative experience as an end result, treat it as a window of insight and a catalyst to work toward contributing to solutions to some of these issues in whatever little way we can.

 

Jiun-Ruey Hu, Princeton University & Vanderbilt School of Medicine