Awakening to Global Health
Narrative Matters Awakening To Global Health It’sbeenlonelyinthetropicalmedicinetrenches,butmoreandmoreAmericans are discussing and growing passionate about the need to improve global health. by Claire Panosian Dunavan ot long ago, the personal assistant to PREFACE: What we used to call “in- an actress left me a voicemail message. In ternational health” (suggesting some- the past, I had provided travel care—vac- thingthatwenton“overthere”)hasnow N cines and malaria pills, treatments for pesky been renamed and reenergized as “global rashes and other overseas ills—to the actress, her health.” Travel, communications, and husband, and members of their entourage. Two the resurgent power of microorganisms or three years had passed since our last visit, but, make the health of populations in Asia of course, I remembered the glamorous crew. The or Africa mainline concerns in the aging celebrity—still beautiful. The business- United States. Both epidemiology and tycoon husband who adored and indulged her. humanitarianism argue for a global And, last but not least, the butler, secretaries, and view of world health. In her essay, tropi- other helpers who kept the couple’s lives running cal medicine specialist Claire Panosian in true, Hollywood-fairytale style. Dunavan discusses the path that led the As an occasional doctor to the household, I United States to this new level of aware- even knew bits and pieces of its Upstairs, Down- ness about the importance of world stairs dramas. Some staff members—for various health and the realization that, as she reasons—didn’t last. But something in this assis- puts it, “the health of others touches all of tant’svoicetoldmethatshewasaseasonedpro.
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