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Increase world-wide food security
Science and technology can be helpful in providing a more consistent supply of crops for regions of the world where the environment is hostile (I’m thinking barren deserts mostly). If still not possible, it would be helpful to seek out other readily available natural resources that could be offered in trade. However, I think at the root of food insecurity is government instability and corruption. Like we had discussed, areas with the highest rates of malnutrition/undernutrition are found in countries that have had recent wars. My parents immigrated from Vietnam just over 40 years ago. Though many see Vietnam as a relatively stable country now, rich in resources and trade, it still has a high rate of chronic malnutrition in certain areas of the country. Whether it be due to mismanagement and nepotism by the government or lasting effects from the war, the instability has affected millions of children. I may be unreasonably optimistic, but I do believe that promoting world peace can help us be more secure in providing nutrition for all.Measles Elimination
Barriers to complete global elimination of measles includes failure of compliance to recommended vaccination schedules in relatively more affluent countries, and lack of access to the live vaccines in developing countries. It is interesting to me to think about the opportunity of choice on this topic. The anti-vaxxer movement in the United States has been the cause of several measles outbreaks in recent years. These parents can choose to vaccinate their children, in a country where the vaccine is readily available. Yet, they choose not to. In less developed countries, lack of infrastructure and supply chain difficulties can make vaccines hard to come by; there is no choice on whether or not to vaccinate for families there. It makes me wonder, if the tables were turned and the US had a shortage of these vaccines, would the anti-vaxxer parents then be clamoring for them?
As a medical provider, I do all I can to encourage and promote childhood vaccination, including providing scientific data and telling stories about what I’ve seen in those who have been infected. It is still difficult to get 100% uptake. In this setting, I would support a mandate that all children get vaccinated unless there is a clear medical reason for them not to.Hello! I’m Cecile Dinh, and I am currently a 3rd year Family Medicine resident in Bremerton, WA. Prior to medical school, I earned my Master of Public Health degree in Global Epidemiology at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. My thesis looked at the associations between HIV and schistosomiasis infections, particularly in Zambia. After my MPH, I spent two years living in Lusaka, Zambia and worked for an HIV research organization, where we did primarily couples voluntary counseling and testing, though we were also an HIV vaccine research site. I loved my time in Zambia, but it was all very broad public health work, and I craved more one-on-one interaction, so I headed off to medical school at Tulane University in New Orleans, LA. I fell in love with family medicine for it’s broad spectrum scope of practice as well as the ability to incorporate my public health background into improving the health of the populations I work with. In particular, I did a very rural rotation on the Navajo Nation in Shiprock, NM, which cemented my inclination for Family Medicine. Things that excite me within Family Medicine include OB/well-woman care and infectious diseases.
I am taking this course because I am looking to see how I can meld both my medical and public health experiences into a global career. I feel that in the past, they have been pretty separate as I concentrated on one at a time. I hope that my experience abroad through INMED will give me better insight into how I can do both at the same time on a more global scale.
I am not sure yet what my future career holds for me. I want to practice full-spectrum family medicine and have my own continuity panel of patients in the US, but I also envision myself leaving the country for months at a time to live abroad and engage in sharing skills and trading knowledge with healthcare professionals throughout the world.