Thursday, August 6, 2015

Day 4 of the Public Health Leadership Seminar!

Hi HOSA!

Day four was a bit hectic as we began our morning with a long metro ride to USUHS (Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences). USUHS is a graduate school in Maryland which aims to educate and train health professionals for the armed forces. USUHS features graduate programs in public health, biomedical sciences and even an allopathic medical school. Attached to the school is the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. We first met with admissions staff to learn about the school, their programs and specifically, some of the details regarding their MD program. The most interesting aspect of their MD program was that the program is tuition-free! The only catch is that after your education, you are committed to serving the school for seven years. All prospective MD students are allowed to apply; you do not have to have military experience. We then were taken on a thorough tour through the school and obtained a better understanding of student life by visiting the classrooms, gym, cafeteria and anatomy labs. To learn more about the school, click here!

After taking the metro back to D.C., we walked over to the Humphrey Building where we met with Deputy Surgeon General-RADM Boris Lushniak. RADM Lushniak explained that the Office of the Surgeon General (OSG) runs the Commissioned Corps which is one of the seven uniformed services in the United States. The Surgeon General position is a 4-year term position and after their appointment, they have two nicknames: Commander of the Commissioned Corps or Nation's Doctor. After Regina Benjamin resigned in 2013, RADM Lushniak stepped in as the Surgeon General for 18 months until the 19th and current Surgeon General, Vice Admiral Vivek Murthy, was sworn in. The purpose of the Surgeon General is to communicate the best science available to the public in an effort to protect their health. The Surgeon General accomplishes this by reminding the public of recurring health issues from the past, such as tobacco, and addressing new, late-breaking public health problems, such as Ebola. After our discussion, we even got to take a picture with RADM Lushniak! For more information about RADM Lushniak, click here.

It was finally lunchtime so we stopped at the cafeteria in the Humphrey Building and grabbed a bite to eat. Afterwards, we walked across the street to the O'Neill Building to hear from our next speaker, Nancy Nurthen from the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) Fusion Division. The purpose of the Fusion Division is to provide decision support for OEM and ASPR leadership through the use of visual data. This visual data is typically in the form of graphs, maps, charts, and social media posts. The goal of the Fusion Division is to stay ahead of emergencies by predicting support needs based on emerging events in the U.S. Some examples of the programs they use include GeoHEALTH and HAvBED. GeoHEALTH is used to load/view local data such as weather maps, healthcare info, population demographics, and CDC information. The HAvBED software is utilized in order to analyze bed availability in health facilities nationwide and address weaknesses in advance. Twitter is also used extensively for disaster awareness and disease tracking. Check out nowtrending.hhs.gov for an example of how they use Twitter to prepare for and react to emergencies!

Our next presentation was from Deborah Knickerbocker who is part of the OEM Recovery Division. The purpose of this division is to empower the people in disaster-stricken communities and meet their long-term needs. Resilience is the key to recovering after a disaster and recovery entails not just building back, but building back better. After the emergency responders leave, there is still work to be done and needs to be met. The Recovery Division provides emergency support functions, such as health and social services.

Next on the agenda were two professionals from the Communications Office at ASPR. They stressed that communication is the key to resilience. To stimulate action, three things are needed: information, resources to use the information, and the care to act. ASPR uses many partners to communicate their messages, especially when utilizing social media outlets, such as Facebook and Twitter. As future health professionals, we should know the risk communication principles as well as psychological first aid. More information about risk communication can be found here and a free online course on psychological first aid can be found through The National Child Traumatic Stress Network.

To wrap up the day, we heard from Captain Denis regarding public health and leadership. Capt. Denis explained that the four P's of health are primary care, population health, personal responsibility and preventive medicine. Healthcare is just a small piece of health though. There are many other factors that determine one's health including environment, socioeconomic status, etc. The only vulnerable/at-risk populations are those which are presented with barriers to obtaining information, understanding information and acting upon this information. A great self-awareness tool to increase your leadership potential is the SWOC tool. SWOC stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges. By being brutally honest with yourself, you can find areas for improvement within yourself, identify the specific opportunities to make these improvements and pinpoint the challenges that you will have to overcome to accomplish these improvements.

See you tomorrow!

Justin Zeien (AZ)

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Day 2 of the Public Health Leadership Seminar!

Greetings HOSA Members!

After an exciting introductory day yesterday, day two was filled with informal meetings and project development opportunities. There are so many unique branches of public health, and we were fortunate enough to explore a few today.

First, we met with Dr. Hatchett from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), within the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Along with focusing on the economics of drug development, BARDA has three main areas of concentration: biodefense, flu preparedness and emerging infectious diseases. Following the wrong vaccine being given during the 2014-2015 flu season, BARDA has been working to create modern vaccine techniques. Not only does BARDA work within the United States, but it also monitors the health of other countries. Currently, BARDA is watching over Asia in regards to the H5N1 virus. To learn more about the medical innovations within BARDA click here!

Next, Jonathan Ban from the National Health Security Strategy (NHSS) component of ASPR showed us the connection between healthcare and emergency management. From recent U.S. disasters such as the Texas Flood and the Northeast Polar Vortex to more common emergencies such as choking and car accidents, resilience is an important quality that public health professionals need to utilize during difficult situations. Jonathan Ban made us realize that everyone has a talent that can be useful during disasters, even if it as simple as being able to play an instrument. If you think you have what it takes to be resilient during disasters, check out the upcoming video contest sponsored by the NHSS here!

PHLS Participants and ENS Andre with Jonathan Ban (NHSS)
Break time (sort of!). The PHLS participants engaged in a team building exercise called the Space Survival Exercise. Participants were given a situation located in space and were asked to rank the given items according to their importance. These items would aid the participants to the mothership. Although we only matched six out of the fifteen items according to the expert rankings, this exercise is great to use at any HOSA conference! Templates for the Survival Team Exercise can be found here.

Subsequently, Mr. Gabriel, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response stopped by the O'Neill Building. He opened our eyes to the link between public and private sectors in public health after he shared his work experience with Disney. Additionally, he discussed the diversity of healthcare. For instance, almost 99% of firefighters are Caucasian males, while the Emergency Medical Services is the most diverse healthcare group. Soon after, we traveled to the National Association of County & City Health Officials (NACCHO) Headquarters by Metro for the first time!

PHLS Participants with Mr. Gabriel
NACCHO is the national connection for local public health. From environmental health initiatives to NACCHO's HIV and STI Prevention Program, NACCHO provides much of the funding and guidance for over 2,800 local health departments in the United States. We also learned about the Health Equity and Social Justice Program, which has several published resources such as the documentary film series Unnatural Cases: Is Inequality Making us Sick? to diminish health inequity. Moreover, NACCHO provides a variety of internships such as the Local Public Health Scholars Program and rotating internships hosted by the Environmental Health, Pandemic Preparedness, and Catastrophic Response Team. Click me for more information on NACCHO internships. Also, don't forget to sign up for NACCHO's newsletters to inform your local health department on current healthcare happenings here!
PHLS Participants at NACCHO HQ
Lunch time! We stopped by Farragut Square and savored many of the food trucks offered in D.C.
Enjoying the food trucks!
Following lunch, we had the opportunity to listen in on a Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) Well-check Webinar. The webinar informed us on the partnership between the MRC and NHSS. Moreover, we were able to learn how to organize, assemble and deploy volunteers for a MRC unit. Also, advice was given on how to plan, schedule and conduct MRC unit activities.To start your own MRC unit, read this.

Finally, it was time to further develop our project. After a few hours of discussing and planning, all of the PHLS participants began to thoroughly outline their designated parts of the project. We are more than eager to showcase our innovative ideas to HOSA later this week!

Until next time!
Sneha Rangu, New Jersey







Monday, August 3, 2015

Day 1 of Public Health Leadership Seminar

August 3rd, 2015 

HHS O'Neill Building
Hello HOSA!

Today was our very first day at the PHLS. This seminar is hosted by ASPR (Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response), aims to promote career pathways in public health, provide opportunities to meet health professionals and leaders who work in and outside Health and Human Services (HHS), and guide participants to develop a project that benefits both HOSA and ASPR.  HOSA members Sneha Rangu (NJ), Justin Zeien (AZ), and myself, Sophie Obert (VA) were all lucky enough to get to experience this week along with advisor Jermey Sutton (TN) and alumni HOSA member Heath Treadway (NC). It will be a fast paced week but we hope to keep HOSA well updated on all of our progress, learning, and fun.

We were all so excited to start out the day, but none of us were sure what to expect from this opportunity. After getting through security we met our guide, ENS Michtta Andre and began the day's session. We had orientation and discussed project development for the week. We are going to be continuing the work done by the July session while also incorporating our own ideas. 

Next, ENS Michtta Andre spoke to us about the vast amount of opportunities available to us in public health. We learned about the Jr/Sr Co-step programs, opportunities for summer internships at both the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) and NIH (National Institutes of Health), and even public health paths in the Peace Corps. Additional information on just some of the public health opportunities discussed can be found here: 

Next, LT Katie Hager gave an impassioned speech about the history of the USPHS (United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps). The USPHS was officially started in 1798 under President John Adams. The USPHS has been involved in outbreaks like smallpox and yellow fever to ebola and  and just about every large scale natural disaster you can think of (i.e. Hurricane Katrina). It was a USPHS member, Surgeon General Dr. Luther Terry, who first introduced a report on the dangers of smoking and how it can be the direct cause of chronic bronchitis and lung cancer.
To learn more about the USPHS, click here
Some Members of the USPHS with the last Surgeon General, Rear Adm. Boris Lushniak
Ted Kennedy stopped by to give us a riveting presentation about emergency preparedness and "controlling chaos". We learned not only what to pack in an emergency kit (click me!) but the chain of command when an incident does occur.  Mr. Kennedy has been an employee for HHS for almost twenty years and was able to tell us many of the changes that HHS has experienced. 
Quote of the day: "All bleeding and all fires will eventually stop; it is a matter of how that makes the difference." Ted Kennedy
If you're interested in learning about the Incident Command System (ICS) take free National Incident Management System (NIMS) courses here.
HHS Building in D.C.
Finally,  CAPT Rob Tosatto sat down with us to talk about the Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) and the partnership between the MRC and HOSA. The MRC provides a national network of volunteers who can be involved with activities ranging from local health screenings to being first responders at incidents. Volunteering or partnering with a local MRC will improve not only your resume and HOSA chapter, but your community as a whole.
To learn more about the invaluable partnership between HOSA and the MRC... click me!
MRC Logo
After a delicious lunch generously provided by George Sifakis we walked to the Russell building to meet with our states' representatives.

All of the PHLS participants and advisors had the pleasure of meeting with senators representatives from their home state. The purpose of these individual meetings was to discuss and promote Perkins funding that benefits HOSA classrooms and other CTE organizations across the nation. Perkins funding was cut by nearly 5.4 million with the sequestration of 2013. Hoping to bring Perkins funding back up to that number, we met with all of our home states staff members (excluding Sen. John McCain's staff member who was unfortunately unavailable). The meetings went well and we hope we influenced two of the senators to vote to restore Perkins pre-sequestor budget.

Have a great night! 
Sophie Obert, Virginia