Heading toward health reform? Thanking our donors: awed by our students.

Heading toward Health Reform?

It is beginning to look like health reform could happen, as committees get closer to agreeing on a package and as compromises get made.

On October 16, 2009, ASPH and 43 other public health organizations sent letters of support for the prevention and public health workforce provisions in the House Tri-Committee and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee bills to President Obama. [Read the letter] Any bill that doesn’t address such issues as prevention, workforce and cost will have missed an important opportunity to reshape some of the forces that have caused current problems.

I have been reading an interesting book that is germane to debates about whether some countries manage their health care in ways that produce higher quality, more accessible and more affordable care. TR Reid has written a fascinating book called The Healing of America: a global quest for better, cheaper and fairer health care. His basic premise is that we could learn a lot from countries with better outcomes, countries where health care may be better and fairer. Seeking treatment for a problem shoulder, he visited France, Germany, Japan, UK and Canada. In describing how his shoulder would be treated in each country, he provides a window into choices we might consider in restructuring health care.

I appreciate the fact that faculty members at our School, including Drs. Jon Oberlander, Tom Ricketts and Dean Harris, have been voices of reason in a debate that too often has been one-sided, combative and mean-spirited. (See Health care reform entry.)

Thanking our donors

Last week, we held our third World of Difference dinner, hosted by local Chapel Hill entrepreneur, communications guru and former voice of the Tar Heels Jim Heavner. He really did his homework learning about the School, and it was interesting and gratifying to hear our accomplishments articulated by Jim in a no-holds barred satirical, witty manner. This event is to thank our most generous donors, people who support professorships, student scholarships, buildings, unrestricted funds and so much more. They are the people who make the difference between a really good School and a great School.

We awarded Jonathan Kotch, MD, MPH, the Carol Remmer Angle Professorship in Children’s Environmental Health. Talk about distinguished… Drs. Marcia and Carol (her amazing mother) Angle are two awesome women who have legacies of impact that are stunning. Dr. Kotch has made many contributions to children’s environmental health, but what really struck me about him is that he has trained 150 students. That is a powerful number!

Awed by our students

I am used to being impressed by our students, but the two students who spoke at dinner, Jillian Casey and Virginia Senkomago, overwhelmed us with the force of their words and the experiences that brought them to us. One, Jillian Casey, US born, Phi Beta Kappa UNC undergrad, global health experience, stellar academic training, whose life was changed forever when her parents were killed last year in a horrible traffic accident. Yet, she picked herself up and continued on with her dream of going to public health school. Last spring, she needed financial aid to turn the dream into a reality. We managed to get her support as an Annual Fund Scholar, and she is in her first year as a HBHE student. Professor and Department Chair Jo Anne Earp, ScD was a force to be reckoned with in her relentless pursuit of financial aid. Listening to Jillian tell her story made a lot of us barely able to hold back tears.

Virginia Senkomago, who was born in Uganda, and grew up in Uganda and Kenya, talked about how, as a child, she had been sick often with malaria, and how this made her want to do something in the health arena. She said she wanted to give back and to return to her country to improve the state of health. She had gone to Yale for her MPH and is now a doctoral student at UNC, supported through the generosity of the Tellus Educational Foundation and Louise and Derek Winstanly, Derek Winstanly spoke movingly about why he and Louise gave this scholarship. We also were so pleased that Andrew Waters, of the Tellus Educational Foundation, was in the audience as well to meet Virginia and hear her story. It was an impressive evening, one that reminded me yet again how many people feel a deep loyalty to the School. We need to earn that loyalty every day.

(Photos of the event will be posted shortly.)

12 days to our CEPH reaccreditation site visit!

Happy Monday! Barbara