New Generation of Health Leaders – Day 1
And the craziness has already started! This day has been so busy, yet I feel extremely motivated by the people surrounding me. This time, I am leading a workshop on global health leadership and advocacy. I consider myself extremely lucky to be able to train a group of highly capable medical students with such a dedicated team of facilitators and friends.
We started the day with a talk from Dr. Mihaly Kokeny on global health diplomacy and governance. Although I consider myself a bit familiar with this topic, I was remembered how much politics and diplomacy are two important aspects of health that are often forgotten and that we often underestimate their crucial roles. I got to sharpen my knowledge a bit more, especially in the differences between governance for global health, global health governance and global governance for health. We also went over the rapidly changing global health landscape, with new actors and stakeholders becoming more powerful; with resources being more and more limited; and with the convergence of old and new health-related problems.
What I think I liked the most about the keynote was when a newcomer asked: “Why are we thinking in terms of diseases and not in terms of prevention?”. It was a perfectly naive yet right on touch. It got me thinking a bit, and in my perspective, this is what the greatest health leaders are doing. They are trying to switch diseases-thinking minds to prevention-led decisions. In IFMSA, we are doing exactly so: we are training future health professionals as so they have a holistic approach of health and that they understand better the social and economic determinants of health.
As for the rest of my day, I have led sessions on global health, where I’ve asked participants to look more into the differences between global, international and public health. I’ve also given a one hour lecture on sustainable development. I’ve put forward the necessity to see health as transcendent issues of the three pillars of sustainable development, the pillars being economy, social justice and environment. We’ve finished the day with advocacy training, where we’ve got to give tricks to participants on how to create and lead change.
On tomorrow’s agenda: two-hour training on climate change and health, a global thinking session and the rest of day will be advocacy and policy focused. I’m very looking forward it, as our final goal is to influence a Global WHO simulation resolution! Our participants are skilled and motivated enough to do so, so we’ll keep empowering and trained!