OUWB’s World Health Day recently featured students, faculty, and guests involved in the global practice of medicine, with a common throughline: one person can make a difference, regardless of location.
Hosted by OUWB’s Global Health Team, presentations were provided by fourth-year medical students who participated in international away electives.
“Global Health: Opportunities and Integrating Into Practice,” was the title of a keynote by Craig Biebel, D.O., a family medicine physician from Maine Health who joined the event live from Thailand.
The overall intent of the event was clear, said Srikala Yedavally, D.O., assistant professor, Department of Family Medicine & Community Health, and one of OUWB’s Global Health Directors.
“We need to spread the word to the students, faculty, and staff at OUWB and Corewell (Health) about the amazing work people are doing and how important it is — whether at the grassroots or health system level — to give back to places that are under resourced and need help,” she said.
“I hope (event attendees) realize that they can make a difference … one person can make a difference.”
‘Rediscovery of purpose’
Inaya Hajj Hussein, Ph.D., associate professor, Department of Foundational Medical Studies, and Global Health Director, explained how global health is integrated throughout OUWB’s four-year curriculum and highlighted specific international opportunities available for OUWB medical students.
These include Oakland University’s Study Abroad to Ghana, a three-week faculty-led program during which students have a “hands-on, community driven experience covering social issues affecting women and children.”
There’s also OUWB’s Study Trip to Auschwitz, which is part of the school’s Holocaust and Medicine program. The trip is designed to prompt students to delve into this distinctive and tragic era in the history of medicine and critically reflect on its implications for one’s own personal and professional development within the medical profession.
Additionally, Hajj Hussein talked about international electives that are available through programs and organizations like AAMC’s Visiting Student Learning Opportunities (VSLO) and the Child Family Health International (CFHI) program. CFHI is an established NGO that offers more than 30 programs in 10 countries that connect students with local health professionals and community leaders transforming perspectives about self, global health, and healing. Through CFHI, OUWB students have studied in places like Mexico, India, and Taiwan, just to name a few.
M4 Salim Abdul-Razak talked about his experiences in Accra, Ghana. He participated in the international elective through CFHI that was focused on pediatrics and overall health of children.
Abdul-Razak said he views global health and health equity as a shared responsibility and explained that he wanted better understanding of how different health systems work and that he wanted to return to Ghana (where he was born and raised) as a health professional and medical student.
For four weeks he worked in Princess Marie Louise Children’s Hospital, which is a 74-bed pediatric hospital in a resource-limited, urban setting. He spent two weeks in the emergency department/intensive care unit, one week focused on mental health, and another on nutrition.
Abdul-Razak called it a “rediscovery of purpose.”
“When I went back to Ghana it reminded me of why I started on this journey (into medicine) in the first place,” he said. “It became a bridge for my Ghana and U.S. identities.”
Maame Obeng, M.D., OUWB ’26, shared her own international elective experiences. She had a month-long general surgery rotation at Cape Coast Teaching Hospital in Cape Coast, Ghana (also through CFHI).
She, too, was born and raised in Ghana. Obeng said she wanted to gain better understanding of how health care works in places like Ghana that are resource-limited, and to honor her grandmother who was a midwife at University of Cape Coast Hospital.
Obeng said she saw surgery through a low-resource, high-ingenuity lens, witnessed how faith, finances, and infrastructure shape care, and gained additional insight about her own commitment to global surgery partnerships and equity-focused practice, both abroad and in the U.S.
She added that many of the lessons she learned can be applied to anywhere.
“Global health is amongst us, it’s within us,” she said. “Global health begins right where I am, whether in Michigan or Ghana. We can always find patients who have certain disparities … and it can affect any branch of medicine.”
Reba Aldaire, M.D., OUWB ’26, spoke about her experiences in Oaxaca, Mexico — the same city they spent a year in as an exchange student in high school. Like the others experienced, they saw the impacts of resource constraints and structural inequities.
Aldaire also said that the month reinforced the importance of language-concordant care and cultural humility.
Allison Ball, M.D., associate professor, Department of Pediatrics, and Global Health Director, said such experiences can be “very motivating and life changing” for students like Abdul-Razak, Obeng, and Aldaire — and that’s why they’re so important for the OUWB community.
“This opportunity that OUWB was able to provide is going to change their future careers,” she said. “It gave them experiences that they will teach countless others in the future.”
For more information, contact Andrew Dietderich, senior marketing specialist, OUWB, at [email protected].
To request an interview, visit the OUWB Communications & Marketing webpage.
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