By: Tatum Burdo, Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick student

The Global Health Initiative (GHI) exists to promote engagement with and discussion of global health issues, within Dalhousie’s Faculty of Medicine. In partnership with the Dalhousie Medical Students’ Society, the Canadian Federation of Medical Students, and Dalhousie’s Global Health Office, we organize events to share knowledge in global health, while connecting interested students to global health learning opportunities locally and abroad.

The GHI is led by a junior and senior medical student representative at both of Dalhousie’s medical campuses (Halifax and Saint John). As part of our team, we are supported by leaders of Environmental Health and Sustainability, Indigenous Health, Sexual and Reproductive Health, Global Health Advocacy, Global Health Education, and Global Health Exchanges.

Meet Global Health Liaisons (GHLs) in Halifax:

Ilana Walters is passionate about using her background in global health to address inequities both locally and abroad. Prior to medicine, Ilana focused her attention on organizations acting in international settings to enable marginalized populations access to healthcare. Shifting her focus to work with marginalized populations more locally—at least while in school—Ilana believes there is a lot of work to be done to empower marginalized populations in Canada, and medicine is a great vehicle to do this!

From publishing a paper on barriers to sanitation in India, volunteering with the Red Cross for six years, and participating in service trips to Nicaragua and Peru, you can definitely say that global health and advocacy work are a huge passion of Rumana Rafiq’s. Rumana hopes to use this role to collaborate with Dal Med interest groups and the Global Health Office to support both existing and new global health events that all can learn from and enjoy!

Meet Global Health Liaisons (GHLs) in Saint John:

To Liora Naroditsky, global health means learning about the social determinants that affect her patients’ health. Liora believes that being well versed in this kind of knowledge can be even more important than understanding the science when it comes to providing excellent patient care. By participating in the GHI, she hopes to expose herself and other students to opportunities to learn about the circumstances and stories that impact patient care, and thus broadening toolboxes of future healthcare providers.

Tatum Burdo is constantly trying to bring a global lens to her medical studies. Tatum is curious about all things global health, but especially migration, displacement, and newcomer health issues. In this role, she hopes to strengthen global health learning opportunities available to Dalhousie’s medical students, and aims to promote a culture of global curiosity among her classmates.

If you have an idea for engaging medical students in topics of global health, please reach out to tatum.burdo@dal.ca.

The Global Health Office website offers more information on Global Health student groups.