Global Health Week returns in April, Johns Hopkins researcher to serve as keynote

The MUSC Center for Global Health is eager to welcome the return of its Global Health Week scheduled for the week of April 8.

For more than 10 years, the center has hosted a Global Health Week on the MUSC campus. This celebration of global health and the individuals making significant impacts in the field, both domestically and internationally, provides significant educational and professional networking opportunities for individuals on campus interested in the topic.

This year’s offerings will feature the first poster presentation session ever hosted during Global Health Week at MUSC. Scheduled for 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on April 11 in the Drug Discovery Building Lobby, the poster session will feature students, residents, faculty and more, celebrating the work being conducted by the MUSC global health community.

This year’s keynote speaker is Nancy R. Reynolds, Ph.D., R.N., the associate dean of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing (JHSON). She is scheduled to deliver her keynote address, “The Vulnerability of Health Care in Conflict Zones: The Role of the University,” at noon on Tuesday, April 9, in the Bioengineering Auditorium (BE 110). Click here to register for this event.

“This talk will focus on the challenges faced by health care systems in conflict zones,” said Reynolds, “explore the role of universities in addressing health care vulnerabilities in conflict zones and ethical considerations involved in supporting health care in conflict settings.”

Reynolds, who is also the director of the JHSON Center for Global Initiatives, is a researcher in the field of chronic illness self-management, with a specific focus on HIV, and has received more than 20 years of continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health.

She has successfully executed and sustained various projects across the globe, particularly in Ghana, India and China. In Ghana, Reynolds spearheaded a project aimed at supporting children living with HIV who had not been told of their diagnoses, even as they reached their teenage years.

“The research has progressed from exploration of the problem with conduct of small, exploratory descriptive work, to large NIH-funded randomized controlled clinical trials testing an intervention,” Reynolds explained. “The research has demonstrated that a simple, context-appropriate intervention integrated in routine clinical care significantly improves disclosure and clinical outcomes.”

To learn more about Reynolds’ work in Ghana and elsewhere, we invite you to explore this exclusive Q&A session.  

Cross-cultural panel discussion

MUSC is home to numerous international faculty and staff members and students who obtained education and medical certifications in their home countries before coming to the U.S. to continue their personal journeys in health care. This year’s Global Health Week will feature a panel discussion of several of these individuals to discuss the differences in health care delivery across borders.

The panel will comprise the following individuals:

• Lama A. Almutairi, doctor of pharmacy candidate, class of 2025 – Saudi Arabia
• Vincent Brice Owona Ayissi, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow, senior lecturer of neurosciences and molecular biology – Cameroon
• Sally Morsy, graduate assistant and Ph.D. student – Egypt
• Rami Zebian, M.D., chief medical officer, MUSC Health Florence Medical Center – Lebanon

The panel discussion will begin at 4 p.m. on April 10 in the Bioengineering Building Room BE 112. To register for this event, please click here.

“Dr. Reynolds’ keynote is incredibly timely given the growing humanitarian crises the world continues to witness across the globe,” said Kathleen Ellis, executive director of the Center for Global Health. “Attendees will walk away with more insight into the challenges that health care workers face in providing care in conflict zones with limited resources and little to no health care infrastructure.”

Other Global Health Week events

Fiesta Latina, the annual celebration of Mexican culture, sponsored by the MUSC Alliance for Hispanic Health, will kick off the week’s events on April 8. Scheduled to take place from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the MUSC Greenway, Fiesta Latina will feature a host of vendors, organizations and food available to attendees.

Finally, the Center for Global Health Student Advisory Council has organized a global health service project from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on April 13 at Our Lady of Mercy Community Outreach on Johns Island. Space is limited, and students interested in participating must register online. For more information and to register, please click here.