To know one life has breathed easier because you have lived. That is to have succeeded. - RW Emerson

Monday, March 4, 2013

Global Health

Welcome to my Medical Mondays Post!

I'm pretty exhausted today after spending my entire day at the Children's Hospital and then going to class...I don't understand how doctors actually make through the day. I guess now is as good a time as any to start improving my stamina and work on looking enthusiastic about everything and my all day happy face.

Anyway, in two weeks time, I will be heading over to Montreal to attend MonWHO, a World Health Organization Simulation conference. I went last year with my previous university, and this year I obtained funding for myself and 5 other students from Calgary to fly out to Montreal to spend 3 days debating, learning and sometimes fighting about global health issues. The theme of this year's conference is "Corruption in Health Care Systems," and I am the Transparency International delegate, which should prove to be a very interesting and involved role. I am also pretty excited about being able to see some of my friends from Guelph who are going and whom I haven't seen in almost year.

The main reason that I was actually able to get funding to go, is because next fall, we will be hosting the first conference of its kind in Western Canada. We are calling it CalWHO, which coincidentally sounds like "Yahoo" which is actually the traditional Calgary Stampede exclamatory phrase (it is not "yehaw" like everybody thinks). Myself and my friend U are the co-Executive Directors, founders and first ever presidents of CalWHO. Before Christmas we had an application process to select 4 more students to form our core secretariat responsible for putting on CalWHO next fall. So while we are headed to Montreal to attend the conference (and eat awesome food, potentially go shopping and maybe hit up one of Montreal's famous night clubs), we are mostly there to learn everything about the conference so that we can recreate it here in Calgary.

This is a massive under taking, as it will be the first student led conference in my faculty and one of two in the entire university (the other is hosted by the faculty of education students, most of whom already have at least 1 degree). I am a bit scared....but at this moment,  I am just really excited to go to Montreal and spend a weekend trying to solve problems that affect the health of people world wide.

Also, happy March from Calgary! I love Canadian weather! (Said no one ever.)





1 comment:

  1. So glad to see you on the Med Monday grid again! Sounds like your trip to Montreal will be an exciting endeavor!
    I am super excited to be heading to Calgary and then Jaspar for a medical conference with my husband in the Fall. I love the Canadian Rockies! Gorgeous!

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