On the front lines of public health

Taking a PHield trip to Orange County

Last Friday, Anna Schenck, PhD, the School’s associate dean for Practice and director of its Public Health Leadership Program (PHLP) and North Carolina Institute for Public Health (NCIPH), took about 40 of our public health students to visit the Orange County Health Department (OCHD) in Hillsborough, NC. I joined them in the afternoon, after students had gone on a public health scavenger hunt through delightful Hillsborough. I was impressed by the staff’s and students’ enthusiasm. Donna King, MPH, director of OCHD’s Division of Health Promotion and Education Services, was truly amazing – a real public health cheerleader in shorts and athletic shoes, as she pitched public health history questions to our students. I’m so grateful that OCHD staff members, many of them educated at our School, took time from their overworked schedules to show our students a really great health department. I hate to think that some students could graduate without ever having been to a health department. Colleen Bridger, PhD, MPH alumna, is a wonderful health department director.

Thanks to members of the Orange County staff for a great visit. As I said at the end of the visit, I haven’t had so much fun on a Friday afternoon in ages. Let’s hear a cheer for public health workers in a state that does not thank them adequately for the hard work they do!

Happy Monday! Barbara

SPH and Orange County Health Department organizers and participants at SPH’s PHield Trip, Sept 13, 2013. Photo by Jessica Southwell