The first week or two, in pictures & highlights

My first view of the WHO, as I walked to work on my first day:

This board caught my eye as I walked into the building on my second day of work:

What a privilege and responsibility -- to have a mission as important as this one. We all have both the honor and duty to uphold and advance on this mission, to help all people attain the highest possible level of health, whether our position is intern or high level officer, whether the work at the center is entrenched in big bureaucracy and health politics or not.

Here's the view from my desk:

The view and Geneva, in general, are absolutely gorgeous. 

Here's my team at the WHO's Emergency and Essential Surgical Care (EESC) program for the next couple months:

From left to right: me, Dr. Farooq Khan (intern and senior emergency medicine resident from Canada), Dr. Meena Cherian (WHO EESC program director), Dr. Saptarshi Chatterjee (intern and dentist from India), and not pictured, our absolutely lovely administrator, Ms. Fiona Constable. 

Saptarshi, Farooq, and I are particularly lucky to be interning at the WHO during the 66th World Health Assembly. In the photo above, we stopped for a moment on a day of sprinting between meetings with ministers of health, advisors, and other delegates to discuss incorporating EESC in national health plans.

We also spent some time advancing EESC and other programs in our Health Systems and Innovation (HIS) department at our WHA galleria booth. One of our wonderful department administrators, Ms. Vine Maramba, found this photo of me in the WHA photo gallery on the WHO Intranet pages (credit official WHO/WHA photographers). In it, I'm telling a WHA attendee that stopped at our stand about the EESC program:

Along with free informational handouts, publications, and pens, our HIS stand featured freshly brewed cups of coffee and espresso for folks that stopped to chat. On one of the WHA days, I was lucky to become our booth's in-house coffee-brewing expert. As attendees waited for their free espresso or coffee to brew, they got to hear a lot from me about EESC and how our program supported and partnered with health ministries. A funny moment included when I sillily asked one sharply dressed man waiting for me to finish brewing his espresso whether he worked in his country's ministry of health; he responded simply, "I am the health minister." Who knew that (wo)manning the coffee at the department's WHA booth would turn out to be such a neat place to be as an intern?

I also got to attend some great WHA talks and briefings. My favorite speech of the week was delivered by one of my long-time heroes in medicine, Dr. Jim Kim:

My favorite lines from the World Bank President's speech were:

The fragmentation of global health action has led to inefficiencies that many ministers here know all too well: parallel delivery structures; multiplication of monitoring systems and reporting demands; ministry officials who spend a quarter of their time managing requests from a parade of well-meaning international partners.  

This fragmentation is literally killing people.  Together we must take action to fix it, now...  

Change will come—it’s happening now. The issue is whether we will take charge of change: become its architects, rather than its victims. The gravest danger is that we might make decisions by default, through inaction. Instead, we must make bold commitments... 

Together, let’s build health equity and economic transformation as one single structure, a citadel to shelter the human future. Now is the time to act...  

We must be the generation that breaks down the walls of poverty’s prison, and in their place builds health, dignity and prosperity for all people.   

Here's a panel on Addressing Violence Against Women: 

The panel featured, from left to right, Dr. Mercedes Juan Lopez (Secretary of Health, Mexico), Mrs. Laurette Onkelinx (Minister of Social Affairs, Belgium), Dr. Keshav Desiraju (Secretary of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, India), Dr. Mustapha S. Kaloko (Commissioner for Social Affairs, African Union), Dr. Flavia Bustreo (Assistant Director General of the WHO Family, Women's and Children's department), Dr. Etienne Krug (Director of the WHO Violence, Injury Prevention and Disability program), Mrs. Kathleen Sebelius (Secretary of Health and Human Services, USA), Dr. Joseph Kasonde (Minister of Health, Zambia), and Mrs. Lilianne Ploumen (Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, Netherlands). Each distinguished panelist discussed their national health sector's response to violence against women.

All in all, it's been an interesting time, my first week or two here at the WHO in Geneva. I'm looking forward to the weeks to come!

Weekend Trips -- A Series of Touristy Posts: Part 1

Exploring Geneva's Caves Ouvertes 

On May 18, a group of my favorite fellow WHO/UN interns and I explored Geneva's breathtakingly gorgeous rural wine country for the Caves Ouvertes, meaning Open Cellars, an annual festival held rain or shine.

A 5 CHF/Swiss Franc (~$5.42 in USD) wine tasting glass- and souvenir-in-one allowed each of us entry and a seemingly endless supply and selection of wines, cheeses, and breads at several fine wineries.

Photo Courtesy of Chenxi Yu

A free TPG (Geneva's Public Transport) shuttle even took us around to the different wine villages. My favorite stop was in Satigny. This was actually where our Caves Ouvertes adventures began--most deliciously--with fresh Nutella crepes.

Photo Courtesy of Chenxi Yu

After a day of celebrating and tasting in Geneva's rural wine country, we feasted on dinner back in the city.

And there was no better way to end the day than with a peaceful post-dinner stroll along the Lake Geneva boardwalk.

For Mothers' Sake

Perhaps there is no better day to start my Women and Public Policy Program (WAPPP) Summer Fellowship blog than today -- Mother's Day. Unlike most Mother's Days, this year, I am not home enjoying my mother's heavenly hugs (they truly are divine--really the best hugs in the world!). I love this woman dearly, but I could not be home to celebrate with her and all the other special moms in our lives this year.

Happy Mother's Day to all moms, including
my lovely mother, Hardev Kaur Singh!

Instead, this Mother's Day, I'm celebrating moms in a different way. Sitting in Geneva, Switzerland, excited to begin my internship with the World Health Organization's (WHO's) Emergency and Essential Surgical Care (EESC) Programme in the morning, I celebrate by beginning a deeper reflection on what it takes to keep mothers and their families healthy and safe in today's world. 

Every minute, one woman dies from pregnancy-related causes. In developing countries, where women are about 36 more likely to suffer from pregnancy-related complications than in developed countries, the leading causes of pregnancy-related death among women are bleeding, infection, high blood pressure, unsafe abortion, and obstructed labor, all of which have simple, life-saving, and cost-effective treatments. For each woman that dies, 20 to 50 more experience debilitating birth injuries, like obstetric fistula, leading to disability and stigmatization. Too many women and mothers that need life-saving and essential emergency and surgical care and many babies with congenital anomalies that need definitive surgical care in many low and middle income countries do not get it due to either hospitals lacking appropriately skilled health workers or health workers lacking appropriately functioning equipment. Those health systems fail in providing mothers essential care and services; in failing our mothers, they fail us all.

Even though it is recognized as an essential component of primary care and critical to achieving Millennium Development Goals, including MDG 5 to improve maternal health, surgery continues to be an underfunded and neglected service on the global health agenda. Aiming to reduce death and disability due to pregnancy-related complications, domestic violence, road traffic accidents, trauma and injury, burns, falls, disasters, and other surgical conditions, the WHO EESC Programme works to overcome common misconceptions about global health and surgery and improve care for women by strengthening and supporting health systems in low and middle income countries.

I'm thankful for the opportunity to help advance this important work while interning with the WHO. I would especially like to thank the Women's Leadership Board and the WAPPP at the Harvard Kennedy School for all their support; thank you for making it possible for me to promote and advance EESC, women's health, and safe motherhood for all women, locally and globally, at the WHO this summer.