GlobeMed Month In Review: October 2015

Above: Actual Photo from GlobeMed Jeopardy

Welcome back to the GlobeMed Blog! October is drawing to a close, giving us a perfect opportunity to look back on all the great meetings and events that took place over the past month. For one, we delved into the history of some of our favorite GlobeMed celebrities, like the various founders of Partners in Health, inlcuding Jim Kim, Ophelia Dahl, and the de facto Patron Saint of GlobeMed, Paul Farmer. Notre Dame's own Dr. John Meara was also a focal point of our meeting, leading to the discussion of a hypothetical Dining Hall Date between our favorite global health figureheads. Later in the month, we took part in one of our favorite traditions, GlobeMed Jeopardy, and much fun (and candy) was shared by all. This past week, during our final meeting of the month, we introduced our new members to one of our greatest adversaries (and favorite buzzwords), structural violence. Defined as disparity caused by disadvantageous conditions and infrastructure, structural violence is present almost everywhere in the world. After splitting into groups, the members of GlobeMed read varying articles and discussed together the ways in which structural violence takes form everywhere from rural Laos to nearby urban neighborhoods in the United States. Diagnosing the problem is one thing, but the GlobeMedders also attempted to tackle the much more difficult problem of how to fix it. This is just the framework for all the great things we will do at GlobeMed this year, so stay tuned and join us in November for more!

Also, Happy Halloween! Keep your eyes out for me; I'm the guy walking around in the Paul Farmer costume.

First GlobeMed Meeting of Fall 2015!

Last night, GlobeMed welcomed a new group of global health crusaders, starting with a short informational meeting followed by our very first meeting of the year! A host of unfamiliar faces gathered for the first time, so our E-Board quickly got everyone accustomed to this new environment. Once introductions were finished, our GhU coordinators Jenn and Luke detailed various instances of poorly implemented charity work in disenfranchised areas, including playground fueled water pumps in Africa, the suggestion to save fat stacks of cash by moving all funding for AIDS patients to HIV prevention (and letting millions die in the process), and a failed attempt to administer justice through criminal trials following the Rwandan Genocide. Luke and Jenn kept silent on their opinions of these matters, leaving the discussion of why these experiments went wrong and how they could have been improved to the members. This prompted some fantastic exchanges and eventually led to the realization that simply shoehorning charity operations into far lands with no input from locals or understanding of their culture is a huge problem and a massive waste of the resources that these people need. That is exactly where we as a GlobeMed community comes in -- we hope to analyze aspects of cultures near and far in order to best utilize our strengths for the greatest good. Just like their GlobeMed ancestors who grew from social justice plebeians to warriors battling structural violence, our new members are already well on their way to becoming proponents of the fight against disparity. These lessons were immediately put to work -- just two hours after the meeting, we Skyped our friends at PEDA in Laos.

From all the smiling faces of GlobeMed, thanks for tuning in to our blog; we hope you are as excited for the new year as we are!

Meet the E-Board, Day 3 - Communications Director Allison

Welcome to the third installment of our "Meet the E-Board" series here at the ND GlobeMed blog! Unfortunately, our first meeting of the year had to be postponed due to scheduling conflicts. This was only a minor setback, and although a campus-wide career fair can slow things down a bit, everyone knows that nothing can stop the Notre Dame GlobeMed team.

Today, we will be getting to know Allison Hogan, sophomore Neuroscience and Behavior major and our own GlobeMed Communications Director. Allison has been a loyal member of GlobeMed since her early days as a freshman here at Notre Dame. This year, she will play a pivotal role in reaching out to the student body to raise awareness of our cause and also spread the word about the many fantastic club events she will help plan. Allison is a master at exploring social problems and finding inventive solutions, thanks in no small part to her experience of a whopping eight mission trips through the years! Allison loves GlobeMed because of the fascinating discussions we take part in every week, which allow her to delve into social and global issues that even go beyond a classroom environment. "Everyone in the club is so passionate about making a difference, which makes the club even more fun and impactful," she added. New members can certainly look up to Allison as a wonderful inspiration and great mentor of all things GlobeMed!

Meet the E-Board, Day 2 - GhU Coordinator Jenn

 
With the first GlobeMed meeting of the school year approaching this week, now is the perfect time for us here at the GlobeMed blog to give our loyal readership a chance to get to know one of our most key players.

Junior Neuroscience major Jenn Wojtowicz will be leading our weekly discussions, serving as GhU Coordinator alongside Luke. Jenn has is not only an experienced GlobeMed member but also a devoted researcher in the field of neuroscience on campus, making her a great fit to lead our foray into the matters of global healthcare throughout the year.

Jenn has said that she loves GlobeMed because she can participate in a community that shares her passion for social justice, and that she has learned even more from GlobeMed meetings and events than from some classes. Jenn will surely do a wonderful job imparting her knowledge and passion on to a whole new generation of GlobeMedders, and we can't wait to see what she has prepared for us in the coming months!

Meet the E-Board, Day 1 - GhU Coordinator Luke

The University of Notre Dame holds its annual activities fair tonight, and the members of GlobeMed are very excited to welcome our new members! As the start of our next year of  "greatness in Geddes" nears ever closer, we here at the GlobeMed blog have decided to start a "who's-who" of our Executive Board staff in order to let our new members get to know who everyone is and what exactly it is that they do.

We are going to begin with one of our two GhU coordinators, sophomore Luke Maillie. Our GhU coordinators are two of the most important pieces in our global health puzzle, as we will be hearing from them every week in regards to the latest developments and challenges faced all around the healthcare world. Luke is the younger member of our GhU duo, but he is a force to be reckoned with, as he spent the past summer away from his native Lancaster, Pennsylvania, working and researching in a hosptial in Shirati, Tanzinia. He not only hails from St. Edward's Hall, widely regarded by experts as the greatest residence hall on Notre Dame's campus, but also helped lead the legendary Sted's Racquetball team last fall (his jersey number will likely be retired throughout the league this season). You should probably call him Luke, but he also reportedly responds to "Carrot."

When asked what it is that makes him love GlobeMed so much, Luke pointed directly to "working with grassroots organizations in developing countries instead of telling them what to do in order to find the best ways to improve locals' lives and to empower local change makers." New members will quickly find that Luke is not only an expert in his craft but also a great teacher, as his and Jenn's weekly GhU talks will not only bring new information to the forefront but also every member to formulate their own ideas and views of the problem at hand and develop their own individual solutions for the future.

Stay tuned to get to know the rest of our E-Board here at GlobeMed! We look forward to welcoming our new members and getting to know you all better in the coming year!

Welcome to GlobeMed at Notre Dame!

Welcome to GlobeMed at the University of Notre Dame! We'd like to take this time to explain the basics of who we are and what we stand for. While we are a student group headquartered on campus in lovely South Bend, Indiana, our mission reaches all the way to the other side of the world to our partner organization in Laos. The Population Education and Development Association, or PEDA for short, is devoted to healthcare and development in its native country, and is a group that we are very privileged to work with. Stay tuned for more GlobeMed information and updates here at Notre Dame in the coming months, when we return to campus and get back in action. In the meantime, feel free to check out some links to the main GlobeMed website as well as the page of our friends at PEDA in Laos!

GlobeMed Homepage

PEDA Main Page

We're so glad you could stop by, and we hope you enjoy your stay!