Yale Bulletin and Calendar

October 18-25, 1999

Volume 28, Number 9

Health students will describe
their research overseas

Yale medical and public health students who this summer studied everything from unexplained deaths in Brazil to female condoms in Kenya will report their research findings and describe the communities where they did their studies 4-6 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 20.

This year's 13 Downs International Health Student Travel Fellows will present posters of their projects 4-5 p.m. that day at the Committee on International Health Annual Fall Symposium and Poster Session in the lobby of the Jane Ellen Hope Building, 315 Cedar St. Three of the fellows will speak about their work 5-6 p.m. in Rm. 110. The event is open to the public; a reception will follow.

"These students all return with so much more maturity," says Dr. Curtis Patton, professor of epidemiology and public health in the division of epidemiology of microbial diseases, as well as director of international medical studies. "When they travel abroad to carry out their research projects, they have to be innovative. They have to be versatile. The hood of a jeep might have to become a lab bench."

Each year some 12 to 15 medical, nursing, and public health graduate students travel as Downs Fellows to distant places for two or more months to study a variety of biomedical and public health problems.

Giving brief oral presentations will be Vivek Murthy, a medical student who studied iron deficiency anemia among adolescents in rural south India; Erik Hett, a public health student who traveled to Kenya to investigate the effect of Wolbachia infection on age in Tsetse; and Mary-Ann Etiebet, a medical student who looked into the acceptability in South Africa of interventions to reduce HIV transmission between mother and child.

The other students and their projects are: Marc Davis, a medical student who studied unexplained deaths in Brazil; Shilpa Sayana, a public health student who investigated men's involvement in reproductive health in Egypt; Melissa Pelton, a student in the Physician's Assistant Program who conducted a primary survey of elbow fractures in Haiti; Alison Norris, an M.D./Ph.D. candidate who studied distribution of female condoms in Kenya; Margaret Bourdeaux, a medical student who studied the impact of a sanitary waste disposal system on child malnutrition in Kosovo; Jacob Creswell, a public health student who studied the impact of HIV/AIDS intervention on Mexican physicians; Laura Krech, a public health student who studied the status of women's health in Mexico City; Pamela Matson, a public health student who investigated behavioral risk factors related to co-infection with HIV and the hepatitis C virus in St. Petersburg, Russia; Douglas Newton, a public health student who studied the prevalence of tuberculosis in Russia among adults with HIV who smoke; and Hilary Rosen, a public health student who studied the risk for Hantavirus infection in Thailand.

The symposium subcommittee is chaired by Dr. Petrie Rainey, professor of laboratory medicine.

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Enhancements to Orbis-on-the-Web make it faster, more detailed

Exhibit traces the history and evolution of Yale library catalogs

Health students will describe their research overseas

Divinity School fellowships honor individuals' work for social justice

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Campus Notes