Amazing how a simple application, an interview, and a warm send-off can land you in Thailand. I am taking a year off from my medical studies in Brooklyn to learn and participate in clinical research through the NIH/Fogarty International Clinical Research Scholars program. Fourth-year medical students, veterinary students, doctorate pharmacology and epidemiology students are matched to one of twenty two research institutions abroad that have collaborations with academic institutions in the US on joint NIH-funded research grants. The program is a mentored scholarship, and selected students are given extensive contact with the both state-side and local principal investigators.
My year will be spent at the Research Institute of Health Sciences (RIHES) at Chiang Mai University (CMU) where they have numerous research collaborations with the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health (JHUSPH). RIHES is part of several large NIH funded research networks, such as the HIV Prevention Trials Network, AIDS Clinical Trials Group, and the International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trials Group to name a few. My US mentors at JHUSPH are Dr. Chris Beyrer and Dr. David Celentano, and my institutional mentor at Downstate is Dr. Jack DeHovitz.
In addition to being involved at RIHES, I am fortunate to be learning from Dr. Beyrer (director of JHU Center of Public Health and Human Rights) who works on human rights issues in Burma and who is actively involved with Dr. Cynthia Maung’s Mae Tao Clinic in Mae Sot. As fate would have it, my partner Nancy will be working at the mental health counseling center at the Mae Tao clinic with support from Burma Border Projects, starting in September.