Lucy Tantum '19 Presents at the Annual Consortium of Universities in Global Health Conference

Mini-Grant recipient, Lucy Tantum '19 shares her experience attending the annual Consortium of Universities in Global Health (CUGH) conference in Chicago, Illinois.

In March, I attended the annual Consortium of Universities in Global Health (CUGH) conference in Chicago to present a poster and learn about current topics in the global health field. This year’s CUGH conference had a theme of Translation and Implementation for Impact in Global Health. Conference attendees included students, researchers, policymakers, and other global health professionals. By attending conference sessions and meeting other conference attendees, I learned a great deal about the issues which are currently at the forefront of the global health field.

My initial impetus for attending the CUGH conference came from the opportunity to share the results of the project that I completed through the Dickey Center and Rockefeller Center’s Global Health Policy Lab. Together with Michael Everett ’19, I worked on a health policy research project in spring and summer 2018. The project centered around the use of telehealth to increase access to maternal and pediatric specialty care in Peru. We worked with partners at Dartmouth as well as Peru’s Ministry of Health and Hospital Nacional San Bartolomé, in order to provide a set of policy recommendations for telehealth use. Upon the completion of our project, we hoped to share our findings with a wider audience, and felt that presenting a poster at the CUGH conference would be a perfect way to do this.

At the conference, Michael and I presented our poster, “Increasing Access to Maternal and Pediatric Specialty Care in Peru via Telehealth: Recommendations and Frameworks”, at a poster session on March 8th. We enjoyed meeting global health professionals who also had experience using or studying telehealth. We also saw how our findings could potentially be applicable to telehealth initiatives in other low- and middle-income countries. For example, we spoke with a physician who worked on a remote island in the Philippines and relied on telehealth to communicate with other health professionals. By sharing our poster and seeing others’ research, Michael and I were able to see how our work could fit into a larger body of global health research.

Apart from the poster presentation, I attended a variety of panel sessions on topics ranging from universal health coverage to climate change to gun violence in the Americas. Panels typically brought together experts from academia, policymaking, the nonprofit sector, and more meaning that there were a variety of perspectives in each session. A highlight was the keynote address by Dr. Patricia García, former Minister of Health of Peru. Dr. García gave a courageous address about the issue of corruption in global health and ended with a call to action for all of us to fight corruption in our work. In between sessions, I also had a chance to connect with friends and acquaintances from around the world. Michael and I especially enjoyed seeing Santiago Uribe, the Chief Resilience Officer of Medellin, who we met on the Public Policy 85 trip to Colombia in the fall.

The CUGH conference was an incredible opportunity to share my work and learn from experts in global health. I plan to pursue a career in global health upon graduation, so it was inspiring and motivating to see the current work in this field and think about how I can best contribute. Thank you to the Rockefeller Center, UGAR, and the Dickey Center for supporting this opportunity!

Submitted by Lucy Tantum '19, Rockefeller Center Mini-Grant Recipient 

The Rockefeller Center's Mini-Grants program funds registration fees for students attending conferences, as well as the costs of bringing guest speakers to Dartmouth. The views and opinions expressed here are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the Rockefeller Center or constitute an endorsement by the Center.