A new initiative could bring up to 25 researchers from around the world to the Wayne State University School of Medicine this summer to broaden the scope of their global health research capacities.

WSU has established the Global Health Research Collaborative to expand the mission of providing quality global health education to local and foreign professionals early in their careers. Global Health Alliance members and GHRC directors Vijaya Arun Kumar, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor of Emergency; and Paul Kilgore, M.D. ’91, M.P.H., associate professor and director of Research for the Department of Pharmacy Practice, held the first faculty meeting for interested mentors last December. 

“This would be a game-changer in global health research training at Wayne, and just the impetus needed for junior faculty around the world and locally looking for quality training and mentorship,” Dr. Kumar said.

The first act is the Summer Institute in Global Health Research and Fieldwork Practices, a three-week workshop to be held at WSU July 14-Aug. 8. Registration is open now through May 1.

The GHRC faculty aims to use the workshop to integrate cohorts of professionals into the collaborative, and to educate students from national and international partners. A three-week curriculum will provide the foundational skills required to succeed in performing academic and policy-driven global health projects while simultaneously introducing students to the strong network of world leaders in global health, under whose advisement students will engage in impactful global health initiatives. The workshop will introduce participants to a variety of global health research skills to be practiced and solidified for the first two weeks. The final week will introduce one of six specializations -- emergency medicine, maternal and child health, behavioral health, public health, infectious disease, or non-communicable diseases within global health -- with the goal of achieving expertise in one clinical research tenet.

The GHRC was created to ensure facilitation of global health research across a worldwide network that provides distinct advantages. These include supervision for research under individuals who understand their community sociologically, ease of communication and connection between professionals global and development of unique global health research education platforms that provide an unprecedented level of practicum training.

The GHRC also provides an opportunity for WSU students to immerse themselves in the collaborative as part of their education. The GHRC team is seeking volunteer student logistics coordinators interested in building education curricula and facilitating research alongside a variety of global health leaders at WSU.

For more information regarding the efforts of the Global Health Research Collaborative, visit https://oip.wayne.edu/global-health-collaborative.

Help the GHRC gather opinions on further developing workshop and collaborative programs by completing a survey at http://j.mp/2XEg6oQ.