Healthy Skepticism Library item: 15945

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Publication type: news

Cameron C.
Global Health Conference 2009
The Lancet Student 2009 Jul 7
http://www.thelancetstudent.com/legacy/2009/07/07/global-health-conference-2009/

Full text:

Today’s blog comes from Chris Cameron reporting from the Australian Medical Student Association’s Global Health Conference. Some very important themes – from climate change to development, and much more – were discussed at the conference and I’m sure all who attended had a fantastic time. Thanks so much Chris for telling us all about it!

Hordes of medical students from Australia and the Asia-Pacific descended upon Brisbane, Australia last week to take part in the 5th annual Australian Medical Student Association (AMSA) Global Health Conference (GHC). The event co-hosted by the University of Queensland and Griffith University was driven by the theme ‘Challenge Your World’, and it is exactly that which was achieved. Delegates were involved in a rigorous academic program addressing five key areas pertinent to those interested in future careers within the international health domain. These included Medical Aid, Disaster and Conflict; Refugees and Marginalised Populations; Public Health and Infectious Disease; Primary Health Care and Screening, as well as Indigenous and Rural Healthcare delivery in Australia. Delegates were addressed by speakers of exceptional calibre over 4 days for the purposes of educating, motivating and in essence, strengthening our faculties to work towards achieving global health equity.

Australia is well placed in the Asia-Pacific region to play a significant role in an economic and political capacity and achieves this through its involvement in institutions such as APEC and ASEAN. The Australian Government recognises the importance of strong and stable relations with its neighbours and utilises its aid agency AusAid to fulfil its regional responsibilities. For sustainable development to occur there must not solely be monetary aid, but a strengthening of healthcare systems and human capital. AusAid has highly effective aid programs in many countries, one of which is an important HIV/AIDs prevention program in Papua New Guinea and is also highly active diplomatically with the rebuilding of East Timor. However, as many delegates learnt at the GHC, Australia is deeply commited to the UN MDGs, it currently falls well short in its commitment in contributing 0.7% of its gross national income (GNI) to assist in achieving the UN MDGs.

Every year, Australian medical students travel overseas on electives and contribute to aid projects in an extraordinary number of countries, not just within the Asia-Pacific but elsewhere. They are involved most notably in hotspots such as the Thai-Burmese border, as well as in Cambodia and Laos. Global health groups within Australian Medical Schools have long-term, ongoing relationships and projects within other majority world countries, such as the Manali Medical Aid Project in India for example. Moreover, Australian medical students are, via their exposure to rural medicine throughout their clinical education, well placed to contribute in developing countries. Even so, the complexities involved in the implementation of and participation in development projects is for many of us a daunting prospect. It is in this context that events such as the GHC provide tremendous utility in equiping students with the skills and confidence to operate in resource poor settings. A novel event that expounded these skills was the Challenge Day: a unique 10-station event which reinforced the demand of discussion and action in high-stress situations, all under the auspice of working together and as a group. The stations ranged from emergency triage and tropical spot-diagnosis to planning nutrition packs and carrying buckets of water large distances, comprising a wide variety of simulations that highlight the challenges inherent in resource poor locations.

One of the highlights of the conference for many was that of a passionate and motivating session by Dr. Sujit Kumar Brahmochary from the Institute for Indian Mother and Child . He outlined the huge gains that can be made from the deployment of a simple grassroots approach based on slow, long term, sustainable measures. He has overseeen the transformation of an organisation from its origins in an outdoor clinic to now being a formidable institution that provides wholistic service to the community of Tegharia, close to Calcutta. High quality healthcare is given and includes dental services, 24 schools have also been created educating 7,000 students and employing 540 teachers and other workers. For Dr Brahmochary this was not far enough and he was motivated by the work of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Prof. Yunus, the organisation is now involved in the provision of microcredit loans that are contributing to economic and social development through a bottom up approach.

The ethical debate surrounding the interaction between the pharmaceutical industry and the medical profession was once again brought to the fore with the official launch of Pharmaphacts at the GHC. A collaborative project, with the participation of medical students from 19 universities and in association with Healthy Skepticism, the campaign aims to involve students in a deliberation on the impact of pharmaceutical advertising on medical education and practice. Jacqui Murdoch, co-founder of Pharmaphacts asserts “that through this launch we can begin to raise students’ awareness to the effects of pharmaceutical marketing on clinical practice. More and more data is emerging to show that although pharmaceutical companies generally don’t market to students directly, the exposure students receive to this marketing through their clinical placements has a significant effect on their opinions and subsequent interactions with companies. Although medical students are clearly intelligent, they are not, as previously thought, immune to pharmaceutical marketing.”

The medical profession’s role in the ensurance of environmental sustainability embodied within the UN MDG 8 and addressing health challenges resulting from climate change was an issue of high prominence at the conference. Phillip Sutton, author of the book ‘Climate Code Red’ presented a session on the impacts that can be expected from climate change and offered an inducement to immediate action for its prevention. He advocated for what was coined ‘emergency mode’, whereby a mobilisation on the scale of that which was required for WWII is immediately necessary immediately if it is hoped to move towards a low carbon economy in sufficient time to avoid catastrophe. During WWII, 40% of GDP was allocated for the war effort and arguably the threat to humanity now is much greater than it was during this time for more information see here.

Australian students are also taking a leading role in advocating for action on climate change. Concurrent to the GHC, the Australian Medical Student Association endorsed its policy on climate change and health. Medical students are highly regarded within the wider community and moves made by our peak body in advocating action on climate change is a meaningful step in gaining significant momentum in achieving political consensus leading upto Copenhagen. Among other things, the policy calls for immediate and sustainable action at a local, national and global level to reduce the effects of climate change; a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions at a minimum of 25-40% of 1990 levels by 2020 and 80% by 2050 in accordance with the IPCC recommendations; acknowledging the important role that medical professionals have in educating the public and lobbying stakeholders such as government to take action on the climate change; to train medical practitioners that have the capacity to deal with the consequences of climate change on health, as well as assist communities whom are going to be most greatly afflicted in their attempts at adaptation.

The GHC has exceedingly served its purpose in the challenging of our world and ourselves. We hope that we may be able to build on what has been achieved at this conference and maintain a unique forum for medical students from Australia and the Asia-Pacific to come together and build towards a future where human rights including equitable access to basic needs, embodied within the UN MDGs is the standard, not the exception. Next year the GHC will be held in Hobart, at the University of Tasmania where it can be assured that the AMSA GHC will continue to be a paragon for giving medical students agency as global citizens, to play a role in making global inequity a relic of an era bygone.

Chris Cameron
University of Queensland UN MDG Project Deputy Convenor