Limits in public funding do not stop academic institutions from investing human and financial resources in research, if not to seek larger funds, to create momentum in boosting scientific innovation. “One of the main challenges sustaining my global health project in Ethiopia was securing some type of funding,” said Mulugeta Gebregziabher, PhD, Associate Professor of biostatistics in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). “When you have funding and
Global Health News and Events
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MUSC professor uses statistical modeling to design public health interventions in East Africa
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MUSC student takes leap of faith on HIV/AIDS program in South Africa
By Matthew Husband Molweni! My name is Matthew Husband and I am a first year Occupational Therapy Student at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). Before arriving on campus, I had the opportunity to intern for a year with a non-profit organization, Grassroot Soccer (GRS) in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. GRS uses the power of soccer to teach kids about HIV and AIDS. South Africa has the largest percentage of individuals living with HIV/AIDS in the world—a total of |
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Lessons from the field: Vasanthan Kuppuswamy, second year medical student
By Vasanthan Kuppuswamy During the summer of 2013, following my first year as a medical student in the College of Medicine, I traveled to a small rural village in Krishnagiri District, Tamil Nadu, India, to both volunteer with a non-profit organization called the Pallavaram Children’s Medical Center (PCMC) and conduct a research study related to the work of this organization through the Department of Pediatrics. I have worked as a volunteer for PCMC, an organization founded by Dr. Athi Narayan, a neonatologist practicing in Atlanta, GA, for many years now. Although the |
Guidance for Ebola-affected countries
Since March 2014, West African (Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia) countries experienced the largest outbreak of Ebola in history. Soon after the World Health Organization declared the end of the Ebola outbreak in these countries, new cases of Ebola were reported in Guinea late November 2015. The health systems in these West African countries continue to monitor for new cases and to exercise preemptive action to prevent transmission. While the CDC has lifted the high level travel warnings to these countries, there remains an ongoing low level risk of exposure to Ebola in these |
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MUSC Ebola Panel Discussion
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MUSC professor works to reduce mental health toll of global crises
The behavioral fallout from the current Ebola crisis has created a historic and consequential dilemma for the global mental health and public health communities. Computational models to track the Ebola crisis provide forecasts of death tolls by scenario, but human behavior cannot be adjusted for given the misinformation, hysteria, and superstition brooding over communities in West Africa and around the world. The nature of crises—war, disease, famine—is dire, but in the advent of modern technologies and |
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MUSC medical student forgoes ecological research for global medicine career
Another cold, dreary day goes by and Susan Linn, second year medical student at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), hears of another preventable death. Had the only clinic on the island where she worked been staffed the decedent would have received much needed treatment. Alcoholism ravages the island—it is hard to discern the causal relationship between heavy consumption and mental illness in either direction. Public health education is nonexistent. The healthcare system is almost irremediably splintered. The North Slope of Alaska may have public health conditions comparable |
Experts at MUSC talk Ebola preparedness
By Helen Adams The arrival of the first Ebola patient in an American hospital comes as no surprise to infectious disease experts at the Medical University of South Carolina. “There have been several false alarms before now, which shows that health care systems are paying attention to patients’ symptoms and epidemiology,” said L.W. Preston Church, M.D., associate professor in MUSC’s Infectious Diseases Division. “People are thinking about Ebola and taking appropriate action.” Yesterday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed that a |
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MUSC Center for Global Health to host PBS Frontline film screening of "Ebola Outbreak" and panel discussion
Join the MUSC Center for Global Health as we screen PBS Frontline’s documentary, Ebola Outbreak highlighting the struggles containing and managing the latest outbreak in West Africa. Immediately following the 30-minute screening, MUSC and community experts will lead a panel discussion addressing a wide range of themes including the infectious disease control challenges and the public health aspects of the epidemic, and the mental health challenges facing the community and health care workers as they battle this crisis. Jeffery Deal, MD, MA from |
MUSC neurosurgeon finds sensory delight and reward in global work
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Traveling to remote locations around the world poses interesting challenges. Some of them are programmatic and administrative. Some require close attention to one’s own health and security, depending on the region. What travelers often experience upon arrival to a new place is mostly perceptual: new scents, bizarre cuisine, kaleidoscopic hues of color, tropical fauna and sites only seen on television or in