People generally are surprised to learn that there are no schools of public health in India, given the immense public health challenges facing that country of more than one billion people. The Indian government and those in its health and education sectors are keenly interested in building a well-trained public health workforce and in establishing their own schools of public health. That is where our School of Public Health comes in, along with a handful of other top U.S. schools of public health.
Our group met with numerous individuals representing leading health care and educational institutions. Our first stop was Bangalore, in southwest India. The technology boom in the "Garden City" is evident. Glittering buildings emblazoned with Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Intel logos tell the story of U.S. interest in India's highly trained and technologically savvy workforce. Indeed, Minnesota's own 3M has a branch in Bangalore. The city is also home to St. John's National Academy of Health Sciences, one of India's most prestigious and academic medical schools.
There, the SPH contingent met with St. John's faculty engaged in infectious disease prevention in rural outposts outside of Bangalore. One professor shared his experience working with leprosy patients and their families in a project designed to treat the patients, manage any disfigurement, and work to assimilate them back into schools and the community.
Infectious disease prevention remains a top concern among Indian health experts and an area in which many physicians are engaged. St. John's professor G. D. Ravindran will teach a course on infectious disease prevention in the developing world at our School's annual Public Health Institute this spring.
Wellness and prevention are also two areas gaining traction in the Indian health care community. Maureen Berlin, a Canadian expatriate, is building a hospital modeled on Medtronic founder Earl Bakken's famed state-of-the-art holistically oriented hospital in Hawaii. One World Hospital and Healing Center will open in Bangalore in the next several months and Berlin is eager to collaborate with the SPH on wellness and health promotion programs. SPH Dean John Finnegan will serve on One World's board of advisors.
Dr. Devi Shetty is a hero in India and the tales of him serving the health care needs of India’s poor are legendary. Dr. Shetty is the head of the Narayana Hrudayalaya Institute of Medical Sciences in Bangalore, a modern multi-speciality hospital and leader in cardiac care. Narayana treats thousands of patients each year. Dr. Shetty shared his vision for expanding the institute to become the world's largest "health city." A new children's hospital and 500-bed trauma center were being constructed during our visit. The opportunities for collaboration with Dr. Shetty are numerous and we were delighted to sign a memorandum of understanding with Narayana Hrudayalaya to begin planning such efforts.
From Bangalore, we made a short one-hour hop by plane to Mangalore where we met with many faculty members from Kasturba Medical College (KMC) and its dean, Dr. C.V. Raghuveer. SPH faculty met with groups of KMC faculty members involved in infectious disease prevention, obesity prevention, technology-enhanced and distance learning, perioperative outcomes, and general public health efforts. There is great interest on the part of Dean Raghuveer for enhanced collaboration between our two schools.
From Mangalore, we traveled one hour by car via a dusty and winding road through lush green countryside dotted with large-leafed palm, coconut, and tamarind trees, over blue-green rivers, and alongside the Arabian Sea to the village of Manipal, home of the large and impressive Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) and its Kasturba Medical College. There, we met with medical school faculty members engaged in public health's sister disciplines in medicine: community health and preventive health.
We made a stop at a maternal and child health clinic operated by MAHE just outside Manipal. There, dozens of women in brilliantly colored saris waited patiently for check-ups for themselves and their children. A long-time employee estimates he has personally administered more than 300,000 vaccinations during his tenure at the clinic, which has operated in the area for more than 30 years and is a model for preventive health care.
We had a fruitful roundtable discussion with Dean Dr. R.S. Phaneendra Rao and several MAHE faculty. Here we signed an agreement with MAHE formalizing our intention to collaborate on several fronts including research and faculty and student exchanges.
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