Going Global in Health Care

Home visits: While at Duke, Helen  Chu M.D. '05 worked with AIDS  and HIV patients in  Tanzania

Home visits: While at Duke, Helen Chu M.D. '05 worked with AIDS and HIV patients in Tanzania. Chris Hildreth

In April, at a campus symposium featuring prominent international experts on global-health issues, Duke launched a new Global Health Institute to promote education, research, and service in health care to underserved populations locally, regionally, and around the world.

The institute is intended to unite the efforts of faculty members, administrators, and students across all campuses, programs, and centers including medicine, humanities, social sciences, engineering, environment, law, divinity, and the life sciences.

"The initial goal of the Global Health Institute will be to formalize and coordinate the many activities ongoing at Duke and then to start visionary new programs to work on issues of disparity both in Durham and around the globe," said Victor Dzau, chancellor for health affairs and head of the university's health system, in announcing the new institute. A search is under way for a leader for the fledgling institute.

Among the presenters at the April symposium were Anthony Fauci Hon.'95, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; Paul Farmer '82, founder of Partners In Health; Joep Lange, former president of the International AIDS Society; and Amartya Sen, 1998 Nobel Prize winner in economics. President Richard H. Brodhead, who joined Dzau in introducing the institute, identified global health as a major priority for Duke last fall.


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