University of Central Florida College of Medicine
Second Annual Global Health Conference
Emergency and Disaster Medicine
The 2nd Annual Global Health Conference at the UCF College of Medicine featured interactive and engaging speakers, workshops, and simulations on Disaster & Emergency Medicine. We were very excited to welcome Dr. Eric Noji (CDC, WHO, post-9/11 White House Homeland Security) as our keynote speaker.
Click here to read the article posted on our COMmunique Newsletter.
Keynote Speaker
Dr. Eric K. Noji is a physician trained in Emergency Medicine, Epidemiology and Tropical diseases who retired in October 2007 after a distinguished 20 year career in public health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Before joining the CDC in 1988, Dr. Noji was a member of the faculty at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and an Attending Emergency Physician at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. At Johns Hopkins and the CDC he acquired extensive experience in responding to natural, technological and industrial disasters, and other humanitarian crises affecting millions of people worldwide.
From 1996-2001 CDC assigned Dr. Noji to the World Health Organization’s Department of Emergency and Humanitarian Action in Geneva, Switzerland where he served as Director of Global Health Intelligence for Emergencies. Following the attacks on the World Trade Center and during the anthrax crises in the fall of 2001, Dr. Noji was assigned to the White House Office of Homeland Security in the Executive Office of the President.
Dr. Noji is a member of the editorial board for eight peer-reviewed journals. Additionally, he has authored more than 200 articles and scientific papers and Dr. Noji’s Public Health Consequences of Disasters (Oxford University Press, 2003) is still the most widely used educational textbook on disaster and emergency medicine. In 2005, he was elected to the prestigious Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science.
Dr. Noji continues to regularly advise senior government officials, international organizations, universities and the corporate community on pandemic flu planning, continuity of operations and health diplomacy policy
Disaster Preparedness Speaker
Anne Cummings is the first International Response Programs Branch Chief in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Preparedness and Emergency Operations. The Branch supports a range of programmatic initiatives related to the domestic mission within the office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR). These include the HHS Civilian Response Corps (a U.S. government interagency unit for international deployments), operational response and preparedness issues with international counterparts and the ASPR international liaison exchanges.
Immediately before standing up the new Branch in 2010, Ms. Cummings was the regional Director for the Asia Pacific region within the HHS Office of Global Health Affairs (2009-2010). The Asia Pacific directorate supports the Secretary of Health and Human Services’ bilateral and regional policy coordination, partnership engagements and HHS attaches in India, China and other locations within the region.
Ms. Cummings has extensive experience with foreign policy and foreign assistance issues with the U.S. Department of State from 1996-2009. Her last assignment with the Department of State was as Economic Assistance Team Lead in the Office of Afghanistan Affairs. Her earlier career centered on South Asia and Central Asia regional and bilateral policy issues. She served in a wide variety of positions as a foreign affairs officer and program manager for economic development, border security, nonproliferation, political-military coordination, justice sector, counternarcotics and crisis management issues.
Yantalo Peru Project Speaker
Dr. C. Luis Vasquez was born in Lima, Peru. A retired physician, Dr. Vasquez graduated in 1961 from the San Fernando Medical School of the San Marcos University in Lima. As a medical student he joined the Cardiology Department at the Hospital Loayza and devoted part of his time to High Altitude Research. Fifty percent of the Peruvian population live at or above 2500 meters above sea level, the point at which the cardiovascular and respiratory systems are affected by altitude. 1962-66 he completed post graduate work at the University of Colorado in Denver and at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. He returned to Peru as assistant professor of medicine and Medical Director for ICI Phamaceuticals working on new beta-blocker drugs. He then joined a private practice until 1978.
He moved to the Chicago area to work mainly in cardiovascular research and International Continuing Medical Education Programs. In 2005 he started a foundation in Yantalo, Peru, an underserved rural jungle community in the Amazon. Devoted to improving health and education, the Yantalo Foundation has aggressively begun the construction of the first green health care facility in Peru and center of an international diagnostic lab, with capacity for molecular diagnostics and genetics.
Currently Dr. Vasquez is co-investigator of an NIH grant awarded to the Yantalo Foundation in collaboration with the Medical School of Wisconsin and the Peruvian NIH. The program will explore the area of environmental health in agricultural rural jungle areas, title as per NIH: GeoHealth Hub in the Alto Mayo Region of Peru, headquartered in Yantalo. This area of research is in the heart of the NIH Global Health Programs.
He welcomes collaboration from institutions with similar areas of interest.
Conference Schedule
Saturday, January 12
9:00am -10:00am Breakfast and Poster Session (optional)
10:00am – 10:10am Dean German Welcome
10:10am – 10:15am Diebel Legacy Fund at Central Florida Foundation Welcome
10:15am – 11:15am Keynote Speaker: Dr. Eric K. Noji (Free & Open to the Public)
11:25am – 12:15pm Disaster Preparedness Lecture: Anne Cummings
12:15pm – 1:00pm Lunch and Poster Session
1:00pm – 5:00pm Simulation Sessions
5:00pm -6:00pm Wrap Up
7:30pm Social & Networking Event (optional)
Sunday, January 13
8:00am – 8:30am Breakfast and Poster Session (optional)
8:30am – 9:15am Yantalo Peru Project: Dr. Luis Vasquez
9:30am – 11:30pm Small Group Workshops
11:30pm – 12:30pm Closing Speaker: Dr. Eric K. Noji (Free & Open to the Public)
12:30pm – 1:00pm Awards & Closing Ceremony
Poster Competition
We are pleased to announce the first poster presentation competition at the UCF Global Health Conference 2013. Competition winners will be offered a cash prize! We invite all conference attendees to submit an abstract for presentation during the conference. Posters will be judged by a panel of judges as well as your peers, and poster competition winners in each category will be announced at the closure of conference events.
Workshops and Simulations
Participants were able to engage in six different simulations involving Disaster Response and Emergency Medicine. The following day participants had the opportunity to attend three of six different available workshops that covered an assortment of topics that followed the theme of the conference. Visit the 2013 Simulations & Workshops page for more details.
Sponsors
We would like to thank The Diebel Legacy Fund at the Community Foundation of Central Florida for helping to make this conference possible.
For any additional questions, please contact us at globalhealthucf@gmail.com