Pape Gaye To Speak At Symposium On Ethics In Global Health

Pape Gaye, President and CEO of IntraHealth, will be one of three panelists at the symposium Ethical Issues in Global Short-term Medical Outreach on February 5. Gaye will discuss some of the issues surrounding international assistance and global health. His talk will consider short-term aid versus long-term health care capacity building, the absorptive capacity of health care systems in developing countries, and challenges related to disparate cultural values.  

A collaboration of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University, this symposium will examine issues arising from the increasing involvement of student and professional health care workers in short-term medical outreach to low-resource countries. This medical outreach presents numerous ethical challenges, yet formal ethics guidance and developed literature remains scarce. As interest in global health grows, attention to these ethical issues will become increasingly important.

Other speakers include Gail Henderson, Professor of Social Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Jeff Baker, Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and History at Duke University.  Henderson will address what makes medical projects succeed or fail and compare issues related to education and service versus medical research. Baker will explore how the history of medical missions has informed and paralleled larger movements in international public health.

The symposium is made possible with generous support from the Robertson Collaborative Fund. The symposium will take place on Tuesday, February 5, from 7:00-8:30 pm, at Hock Plaza Auditorium in Durham, NC. Parking is available at the Hock parking garage, and directions are available here. For more information, please contact Martha Carlough (martha_carlough@med.unc.edu) or Matt DeCamp (mwd4@duke.edu).