Global Health Pathway

Yesterday I signed up for the Global Health Pathway through the UW medical school. There are 3 "Pathway Options" available at the school:

1) The Indian Health Pathway - preparing physicians to meet the health care needs to Native American Communities.

2) The Underserved Pathway - preparing physicians to best meet the needs to underserved populations in the US and abroad.

3) The Global Health Pathway - preparing physician to work internationally, particularly in developing countries.

Signing up for a Pathway is not required and it is just a way to help focus your medical education on what you would like to end up doing. Since I want to end up working internationally, I decided the Global Health Pathway might work out well for me. The Global Health Pathway is part of the new Department of Global Health which just formed in January 2007 at the University of Washington (they got big $$$ from Bill Gates to start up).

They have this really cool program called IHOP (not the pancake place) which stands for International Health Opportunities Program. This program allows students to go overseas for an international experience in the summer between their first and second year of medical school. The program pays for your airline ticket and sets you up an activity at one of the international clinic sites. Unfortunately it is really competitive (the endless story of everything about medical school) so lots of people apply who don't get to go.

I was talking with the Global Health Pathway Coordinator and she said that there are 8 other students in our first year medical class that speak (or at least know a little) Swahili! Crazy. I think we might try to get a Swahili conversation group going so we don't forget everything.