Alumni
Course: 2023-2024
I’m a passionate young researcher working in the field of liver health at the Gastroenterology and Hepatology Division of the IRCCS Fondazione Ca’ Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico in Milan. I started my research career during my bachelor’s studies at the Università Statale di Milano in medical biotechnology, and beside some other more biological projects, I was involved in screening programs of the main viral hepatitis infectious agents in the context of at-risk populations (migrants, homelessness). This experience, together with the time I’ve been in places like Egypt because of family reasons, allowed me to develop awareness in the living conditions of many and the will to devote my research activity and my career to the improvement of health on a global scale. I recently graduated with honours from MSc in medical biotechnology from the Università Amedeo Avogadro (Università del Piemonte Orientale) and the humanitarian nature conferred by the Director of the course have further prepared me to pursue this career. I’m sure that this master will provide me with the right tools and skills to delve properly in the field.
“To me MGH has been and still is an enlightening journey. Most of the modules have opened my eyes to aspects and sectors related to global health that I had never thought about. The other modules, which most of the time dealt with topics that I already encountered in my academic career, were able to show me the practical involvement in reaching global health objectives.
In some cases, the thrill of starting a new module had to face the fear and the confusion typical of someone getting into a new field of knowledge. However, it is always reassuring to see how all the different sectors involved, even the most diverse, at the end of the day aim at improving human health and reducing sickness, disabilities and deaths.
In the MGH path, given the coexistence of work and study commitments, time management is key. Even though I wish I had the time to get more in the specific, I am happy that I succeeded, until now, in keeping the pace and at least have an idea of the complexity behind global health. Also the assignments that we were asked to generate, besides giving us a proper idea of what we are asked to provide in the global health field, were at the same time challenging and highly rewarding. Personally, one of the most important goals I reached through this journey is to be able to access resources, statistics and reports related to health and contextualise them in the global framework. Even though the path of knowledge is long and for sure there is much more I need and want to learn, this master provided me with the tools necessary to understand which are the health issues of a population and therefore gradually get to formulate or pick out pre-identified approaches to face the issue. The heterogeneity of the class in terms of background is at the same time inspirational and demanding. Beside being able to relate with professionals from different sectors in an international environment, this master, through the many group assignments, requires us to be able to cooperate between each other and communicate effectively to reach the group’s goal.
My future engagement in Global Health
It is clear to me how global health requires a highly inter-sectoral approach where many different professionals contribute to the common goals. However, in all the aspects involved, it is essential to be able to manage and analyse data in order to properly visualise results of global or regional efforts.
For this reason, the course until now consolidated my desire to pursue a global health career with a special focus on epidemiology, which I think is the science that, maybe more than others, can contribute the most to global health and more importantly that suits me and my background the best. Given the complexity of the human health, connected to its behavioural and cultural determinants, I feel that beside the theoretical studies, which are quintessential for any kind of specialisation, in the case of global health it is very important to have hands-on field experiences and properly understand the needs of the diverse human societies.
Global health goals are very much inspiring and, as per the entire world of biomedical research, really aim at pushing human knowledge on health to its farest boundaries in order to keep improving. The mixture of socio-economic and political aspects makes global health a very uptodate and practical science that must be taken into account in any evidence-based human political agenda