Office of Global Health Prepares Students for Mind-Opening Opportunities

From the streets of Cincinnati to countries around the globe, the learning about the impact of HIV and tuberculosis teaches valuable lessons about more than global health.

Thanks to the efforts of one-year-old Office of Global Health at the University of Cincinnati, students of all levels and majors from across all colleges experience life-changing realities both at home and abroad. For example, Nursing student Jeff Maler took an Honors class that traveled to South Africa, where he put lessons he’d learned about Cincinnati into a global context.

“The course did an excellent job at connecting problems in South Africa with problems in Cincinnati,” said Maler, 20. In Cincinnati, the class heard from UC experts in HIV, including his professor, Office of Global Health Director Jason Blackard, PhD, and Judith Feinberg, MD, professor of internal medicine in the division of infectious diseases. In addition to visiting clinics in South Africa, where the prevalence of HIV is among the highest in the world, he learned about HIV in Cincinnati.

“It really brought what we were learning home,” said Maler, who volunteers at a local clinic for the homeless.

Lessons learned: public health impacts everyone
Blackard is a full-time faculty member at the College of Medicine and virology researcher who teaches an average of three classes each year, all with global travel. He said the Office of Global Health, which is funded by the College of Medicine, provides more than opportunities to study abroad.

“We have such expertise at UC,” said Blackard, whose classes have a notoriously long wait list. “We have research, education, clinical and service experience that can benefit so many students.”

Blackard said it’s an illusion to think that global health initiatives are only for medical students. “Global health is a necessity,” he said. “It encompasses so many different disciplines.”

Students in his classes have come from the McMicken College of Arts & Sciences, the College of Engineering and Applied Science, the College of Education, Criminal Justice and Human Services as well as all the health-related colleges.

“I wanted to know more about public health in general,” said Nitya Sreevalsan, 21. The Neuroscience major who is minoring in Spanish and Medical Sciences was another student who traveled to South Africa. “Academic contexts can only go so far in demonstrating the conditions and general attitudes revolving around healthcare around the world.”

Experiential learning on the front lines
Sreevalsan put it bluntly. “It’s one thing to learn about cryptococcal meningitis resulting from not taking HIV medications in the classroom, but quite another to actually see a patient in a hospital sitting in a pool of her own vomit because of the tremendous intracranial pressure.”

For Juliana Madzia, a 19-year-old neurobiology student who also traveled to South Africa, getting to talk with professionals as well as community members in the field made a tremendous impact. She credits Blackard’s focus on providing “the very best learning experiences” for helping her gain “insight into the HIV/AIDS situation in the country in a way that I could never have done by studying in Clifton.”

Over the course of dozens of international trips with students, Blackard has crafted a powerful combination of research, conversation, exploration and hands-on learning. By taking students far from their comfort zones, he guides them to understand the deep and lasting impact of public health work for all citizens, not just health professionals.

Growing options for health studies abroad
Part of Blackard’s focus at the Office of Global Health is expanding students’ opportunities to connect their learning and their lives to the bigger world around them. Hundreds of UC students have already taken health-related courses that include travel to South Africa, Ghana, Tanzania, Central America and China, he said.

“The Office of Global Studies is a necessary and helpful resource for all students interested in studying or working abroad in a health-related context,” said Madzia, a sophomore. Like her peers, she said the office and course helped expand not only her mindset, but also her interest in public health.

Blackard sees the office as a powerful opportunity to enhance student learning and raise UC’s profile around the country and around the world. “We’re just a year old and we are already tapping into amazing resources for students, faculty and staff,” he said. “I am looking forward to seeing us take our place at the forefront of UC’s Third Century.”