Catching up with 10,000 Women Scholars

(From left to right) Dr. Liu Xianghong showcases the vaccination station for children to Yu Liu, Yale, and Jia Lu, Tsinghua SEM.

       On July 5th, 2011, Dr. Elizabeth Bradley, Faculty Director of Yale GHLI and Faculty Co-chair of Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women: Yale-Tsinghua Certificate Program in International Healthcare Management, and I had the pleasure of visiting program scholars and seeing first-hand how tools provided through our teachings are not only being used, but have helped the participants in their daily work beyond what we could have ever imagined when designing program plans.

We met with two scholars, Dr. Kong Lingwei, director of Beijing Jiaotong University Community Health Center and Dr. Liu Xianghong, assistant director of Desheng Community Center, located in Beijing as part of the scholar-visit plan by Yale and Tsinghua.

Our delegation’s first stop was the Beijing Jiaotong University Community Health Center, where we toured the center’s medical record room and chronic disease management center. Dr. Kong also showed us a project she has worked on using the scientific problem solving methodology she learning during her time in the 10,000 Women Program. She demonstrated the computerized implementation she was utilizing, which Dr. Bradley described as “a beautiful example of clearly defined goals, timelines and task responsibilities.”

Our next stop was the Desheng Community Center, where we were given a tour of the vaccination center for children, chronic disease management center, and patient check-up center, as well as listened to Dr. Liu’s report about performance evaluation for the community center. It was obvious that Dr. Liu’s team had brainstormed about creative ways to improve the patient experience at the pediatric vaccination center. They had redesigned where and how the children received their vaccinations, all with the intent of minimizing the trauma of the vaccination process.

During conversations with me, Dr. Bradley, and the other Yale faculty members in our delegation, Dr. Kong and Dr. Liu expressed to us how helpful the courses were for their management skills and career development, especially the problem solving methodology. “I have used the content from leadership, and strategic planning to influence coworkers as well as my boss in my community center,” said Dr. Liu.

Dr. Kong also said that the 10,000 Women Program made her more passionate about her work at the Community Center and believes that with all the management tools she has learned from the program, she can take the center to a much higher level.

Both women praised the confidence they gained from the 10,000 Women Program. “I am confident that I can be a great leader of a community center,” said Dr. Liu. Our visit was much too short, but very fulfilling and reaffirming to know that our program has such a positive impact on our participants when they return to their daily lives.

Martha Dale, director for China programs, Yale Global Health Leadership Institute

From the GHLI Conference to the Ghana Government: The Progress of the Mental Health Bill

As the GHLI Student Fellow program continues to expand, we are always more than pleased to see that our students are involved with making a difference in their delegate countries.

This week, GHLI student fellow, Rebecca Distler, joined the Ghana delegation in their meeting with the Vice President of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama. The delegates, who attended GHLI’s annual conference this June, updated Mahama on the outcomes of the conference at Yale, and the post-Yale activities that the delegation had accomplished. The Vice President, who also made a visit to the GHLI Conference, has pledged to support the delegation’s work on improving mental health care in Ghana. At the Conference, Mahama said that he is "happy that the delegation is actively living up to what was expected," and spoke about launching a public awareness campaign for mental health to change the current thinking in Ghana of "mental health being an afterthought."

Mahama has already begun to follow through on his words at Yale by charging the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service (GHS) to launch a national campaign to create awareness about mental health and reduce stigma against mental health patients in the country.

During their meeting, the delegation presented the newly drafted post-Yale work plan, on which Rebecca was able to assist, along with a timeline for completion and a budget. They also requested that the mental health bill, which has entered into Parliament's agenda for a second reading, be put under their consideration when they reconvene in October.

The meeting was photographed by journalists for several newspaper outlets, and was filmed for national news. Read the story in the Ghanaian news here.

Jeannie Mantopoulos, Assistant Director, Yale Global Health Leadership Institute

Update from South Africa

Ryan Park, GHLI Student Fellow
July 2011

Informal settlement in KwaZulu-Natal

The Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria

One of the greatest opportunities I have had this summer has been meeting so many people across the health sector – from nurses at rural clinics to senior managers of regional hospitals (including the largest acute hospital in the world!), and from health policy makers and managers at district, provincial and national health departments to the founders of private institutions that provide technical assistance in health care delivery throughout South Africa.

Meeting all these people and learning their unique perspectives has shown me why policies and programs that seem so straightforward on paper are astonishingly difficult to implement in reality. In the countless steps beginning with policy design and ending with implementation at the point of care, dozens of different opinions, interests, and concerns – from clinic workers to private sector consultants – constantly fight to be heard. If the voice of a single critical stakeholder is not accounted for, the entire process may fall apart. One main challenge to executing a health program like ours is navigating the delicate politics – luckily for me, navigating politics usually means talking to many fascinating people and taking road trips to the heart of Zululand in KwaZulu-Natal.

As an unrelated side note, the 18th of July was Nelson Mandela’s 93rd birthday. Though it’s not a public holiday, it’s a huge national event. People were asked to volunteer 67 minutes (for his 67 years of public service) towards community service, with an official website listing pre-organized activities like painting schools, gardening, serving meals to kids, and donating blood. Can you imagine that happening in the U.S.?

It’s hard to believe my summer in South Africa is coming to an end. I’ve been here six amazing weeks, and with only two left to go, I’m already starting to respond to some meeting requests with “I’m so sorry, but I’ll be back in the States by then.” I’m usually then asked when I’m coming back, and I give the somewhat awkward “I’m not sure… maybe next year?” Sometimes they press further, and I must add, “I have to finish school!”

Update from Rwanda

Eleanor Hayes-Larson, GHLI Student Fellow
July 2011

 Me and two colleagues from the MOH (Lisa right, Mathilda left) after the kick-off of Mother –Child Health Week and Malaria Day in the northeastern district of Nyagatare

Me and Jill (another YSPH student) with women who recently learned to read and write, and some of their teachers. We had a chance to ask them questions through a friend who translated. We had a good exchange about maternal health both in Rwanda and in the US. This is a small town in the eastern district of Kayonza.

I cannot believe I’m in the middle of my 5th week here in Rwanda already! The health sector research policy is coming along nicely – we are currently gathering comments from key stakeholders on the draft. The most interesting parts of the job have also been some of the most challenging. My background is science – between chemistry and epidemiology – yet, all my work here is policy-related, a realm into which I have not previously ventured. The development of a national policy from just an idea to a full, living document is complicated. Some of my favorite days here have been those when I have gone to meet with stakeholders such as the National University of Rwanda School of Public Health, CDC, Project San Francisco (an NGO that works mainly on finding and HIV vaccine), and the Rwandan national AIDS commission. Learning about their work has enriched my understanding of health in Rwanda tremendously, as well as my broader understanding of how health research happens in the world.

The challenging part is to bring all these ideas (some conflicting) back to the office, and synthesize them into a useful policy that will meet everybody’s needs and serve to improve the state of research in Rwanda’s health sector.

In contrast to a chemistry lab, mixing A and B does not always equal C. At times, it has been frustrating for me to go through this process, when the end goal is so clear. At other times, it has been an amazing learning experience to really live the process of building a policy like this one from the ground up. Now that we are in the editing/finalizing phase, it is easier for me to understand why the process needs to work the way it does, and it feels very rewarding to have seen it through.

Though I may head back to a lab in the fall to do my MPH thesis, the lessons I have learned here about flexibility, synthesis of conflicting ideas, and process-oriented decision-making will stick with me for good!

Update from Ghana

Rebecca Distler, GHLI Student Fellow
July 2011

It is amazing how quickly a month has flown by here. Work is going really well; my time in Ghana has given me a chance to explore health policy first hand. This experience has completely changed my view on what my potential role could be in this field. One of the most exciting things with which I’ve been involved is the development of a new policy that I collaborated on with Dr. Ofori-Atta. When I was initially tasked with researching mental health in South Africa, a particular challenge was to locate in-service training modules that could be adapted for Ghana. I came across a WHO report that said that in South Africa, all psychologists (and other health personnel) are required to do a year of community service in the districts. I asked Dr. Ofori-Atta if it would be possible for Ghana to implement a similar program and discovered that undergraduate students were required to complete a year of national service upon graduating from university. Dr. Ofori-Atta and I began creating a policy where the students in the community psychology course at the University of Ghana are required to spend their year of national service doing basic psycho-social work in the districts.

I’ve since been involved in many meetings with the directors of human resources in both the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service, the head of the psychology department at the University of Ghana, and the directors of Basic Needs and of the Mental Health Society of Ghana. I am not only excited to have so much responsibility, but also am pleased with the enthusiastic responses we have already received. I am quickly realizing that this has been my favorite part of my work here -- meeting with the different stakeholders, gathering opinions and suggestions and using them to tweak the policy as we move along.

The policy-making process has given me a much deeper understanding of how important knowing local culture is to making policies. And, the fact that letters are can be crucial in this work -- I will need a letter from every person I talk to, confirming their support for this initiative. With so much momentum going, I am so sad that I only have two weeks left here, but plan to make the best use of the time!