Instructions: 1-2 pages single spaced The GH2 writing assignment is not a research paper, but rather a short editorial piece — one-to-two pages single spaced. Why are you tasking us with an editorial piece? A few good reasons: Many of you are life-long science majors who are trained exclusively in the ″just the facts″ writing genre, and clinicians have become even more extreme about this with the emphasis on evidence-based medicine. The problem is, how do you make decisions and solve problems when all the facts are not readily available via PubMed, or otherwise found in ″the literature″? When it comes to global health in particular, many of the answers are not ″in the literature.″ Gathering a bunch of sources and simply citing something from each one is not really graduate-level work or thought. I′m trying to draw out original thoughts from you — or at least your thoughts about others′ original thoughts — and editorials are a great way to force that.
The GH2 course covers of a number of controversial topics (abortion, ethical challenges when GHEs turn south, among others) and often highlights controversial angles of more routine topics. There has to be something in the course that sparked a series of thoughts or a unique reaction that you can editorialize about. Write about that. We try to elicit those sorts of things on the discussion boards and the VTC sessions, but those are sometimes limiting.
This short editorial gives you a good forum to bring your thoughts and perspective. Many of you have thoughts and perspectives that are truly valuable. I define ″valuable″ here to mean that it would be worthwhile for future students to read what you wrote. Many of you have written things that far exceed that standard, and I′d like to capture those insights to continue to build future course material. People like to knock Wikipedia, but it′s far better than any encyclopedia that came before it and its value comes from its large number of editors and far larger number of contributors. My long term vision for GH1, GH2, and the GHE courses is that they become bodies of work that draw from the collective experiences and insights of all of you.
This writing assignment is a small step in toward the implementation of that idea. One of the concluding themes of these two courses I teach is that we must not abdicate our duty, even as military members, to inform policy. In the final modules of both courses I suggest, among other things, that some of our failures have resulted in large part from the failure of senior military members to communicate to their superiors what is realistic, reasonable, and even ethical with regard to military involvement in global health. General McMaster says as much in Dereliction of Duty, where he attributes our failure in Vietnam to military′s failure to forcefully assert its operational and strategic expertise in informing policy.
As students of global health at the masters level, you are expected not just to be able to read, watch, and understand the material presented to you, but to be able to interpret and analyze it, and then synthesize a response or recommendation based upon your own expertise, which is derived from your education, experience, and intuition. This paper represents and exercise to help you improve your ability to do just that. Many jobs in global health require that you are able to effectively articulate various positions. The article, Trump Team′s Queries About Africa Point to Skepticism About Aid, highlights in a very illustrative way how important it is for people in global health to be able to make effective arguments in support of their positions, programs, and ideas. I cannot emphasize enough how important a skill this is. It′s unfortunate that in science and medicine we are trained only to write in such a banal manner (abstract, methods, results, etc.) and yet the field of global health calls for such a different skillset with regard to written communication. It′s really remarkable how challenging editorial writing can often be for science and medical professionals who find themselves both unfamiliar and even uncomfortable with it, but to succeed in global health (particularly as a leader) it′s a skill that must be practiced and learned. From a practical standpoint, feel free to contact me to discuss thoughts or ideas if desired. The number one question I always get, though, is ″Is this topic okay?″ So let me tell you now the same answer that I tell everyone. You can write your editorial on any topic you want as long as it′s an editorial, and as long as it involves an issue related to health or development in LMICs, or Global Health Engagement (GHE)
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Please don′t be one of those people who writes an entire paper on something wholly-related only to the domestic duties of your current job in the United States, and having nothing to do with the focus just mentioned. Also, I understand that global health now ″includes us,″ but the focus of this course, and the whole program, is health and development in LMICs (Low Middle Income Countries), and GHE. That actually is quite a broad scope from which you can pick a topic.
Attached are examples of some editorials. Mimic those.
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