A Summer with the Global Guardian of Public Health
I have been in Genève for more than two months now, and I have failed to discuss the two main reasons I am here: 1. Interning with the World Health Organization in the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, 2. Taking a course on Global Health Policy with the Duke University Program on Global Policy and Governance. My university played a tremendous role in affording me this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I am humbled and appreciative to be taking advantage of it. The Internship So first off, let us get this straight: For the past 2 months I have been working diligently for 45 hours per week while attempting to keep up with my master's thesis work for no compensation. Now that we have that nugget out of the way, we can talk about business. The WHO is the agency under the umbrella of the United Nations that deals with public health: the responses to outbreaks of Ebola, SARS, HIV, Cholera, etc., for better or worse, are widely coordinated within the walls o