Inaugural Symposium

Delivering Health Globally Examining the Challenges and

Opportunities in the 21st Century

Mohammed Bin Rashid Academic Medical Center

Dubai Healthcare City

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

ghd-dubai.hms.harvard.edu

The Center addresses some of the most pressing health challenges in the region by focusing

on research, medical education and training that promises to improve healthcare delivery

systems and patient outcomes for diseases prevalent in the United Arab Emirates, Middle

East, North Africa and neighboring regions. The Center also provides opportunities for

faculty and students to pursue research related to the delivery of existing or new interventions

that can cure or prevent disease, specifically in the following priority areas: diabetes and

obesity, infectious disease, mental health, and surgery.

The Center’s Region

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to the inaugural symposium of the Harvard Medical School Center for Global

Health Delivery–Dubai. We are extremely honored to have you join us for this event, which

is being held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al

Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, and Ruler of Dubai.

Delivering Health Globally: Examining the Challenges in the 21st Century is the launching

point for exchange of ideas focused on some of the most pressing issues we confront as

scientists, educators, and practitioners committed to improving global health delivery. We

have convened global experts on diabetes and obesity, surgical care, infectious disease, and

mental health. Today’s symposium will focus on the challenges we face in health care

delivery, including building local capacity for research and strengthening health system

capacity to deliver comprehensive care.

Participants in this symposium are known for their outstanding vision and service in the field

of global health. I encourage each of you to use this symposium as an opportunity for

discussion—with our speakers and each other—about how best to advance our collective

global health agenda.

Thank you for joining us for this symposium. I look forward to engaging in conversation with

you over the years to come.

Sincerely,

Salmaan Keshavjee

Director

Agenda

Welcome, Salmaan Keshavjee

Greetings from

Harvard Medical School, Jeffrey Flier and David Golan

Dubai Healthcare City, Amer Sharif

World Bank Group, Jim Yong Kim

The work of the Center, Salmaan Keshavjee

The role of universities building capacity in the region, Richard Mills

Harvard Medical School’s role in building capacity globally, Ajay Singh

Break

The Center’s areas of focus and introduction of speakers, Salmaan Keshavjee

Diabetes, Merri Pendergrass

Infectious disease, Zarir Udwadia

Mental health, Anne Becker

Surgery, Lubna Samad

Global health in the 21st century, Paul Farmer

Discussion, Salmaan Keshavjee

Closing remarks, Salmaan Keshavjee

Dinner and photo exhibit

Director of the Center

Salmaan Keshavjee, MD, PhD, ScM

Dr. Keshavjee is the Director of Harvard Medical School’s Center for

Global Health Delivery–Dubai. He is also Associate Professor of

Global Health and Social Medicine at the Department of Global Health

and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Associate

Professor of Medicine in the Division of Global Health Equity at

Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Dr. Keshavjee has been leading the Harvard Medical School Center for Global Health

Delivery–Dubai since 2014. Dr. Keshavjee is a physician and social anthropologist, and a

leading expert on the treatment of drug-resistant TB and the anthropology of health policy.

He is the author of Blind spot: How neoliberalism infiltrated global health, which is based on

his PhD research in Central Asia (Tajikistan). He has worked extensively with the Boston-

based non-profit Partners In Health on the treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis. Since

2000, Dr. Keshavjee has conducted clinical and implementation research in Russia with

Partners In Health, leading the research component since 2005. In 2006-2008, he was also

the Deputy Director for Partners In Health Lesotho, launching the first community-based

treatment program for multi-drug resistant TB/HIV co-infection in sub-Saharan Africa. His

research has resulted in a number of manuscripts of global clinical and policy significance.

Dr. Keshavjee has been engaged in transforming global policy discussions around the

treatment of drug-resistant TB. In 2005, he became a member of the World Health

Organization/Stop TB Partnership’s Green Light Committee for MDR-TB Treatment, serving

as Chair from 2007 to 2010. He has worked to develop alternate mechanisms for drug

procurement, technical assistance delivery, and program implementation. Dr. Keshavjee is

leading an initiative at Harvard Medical School that convenes scholars and practitioners to

deploy proven strategies to achieve zero deaths from TB.

In addition to his research and policy work, Dr. Keshavjee is also an active member of

Harvard’s teaching faculty. When on service as an attending physician at Brigham and

Women’s Hospital, Dr. Keshavjee teaches residents, interns, and medical students. He also

co-teaches (along with Drs. Paul Farmer, Arthur Kleinman, and Anne Becker) a general

education course for undergraduates at Harvard College, and is a guest lecturer on TB and

health systems for several courses at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of

Public Health.

Speaker Biographies

Anne E. Becker, MD, PhD, SM

Dr. Becker is the Maude and Lillian Presley Professor of Global Health

and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, where she also serves as

Vice Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine and

member of the Leadership Council of the Harvard/MIT MD-PhD

Program. An anthropologist and psychiatrist, Dr. Becker has been lead

investigator on a series of studies demonstrating the relationship between

media exposure and eating pathology in the indigenous population of Fiji.

With research funding from the US National Institutes of Health, Dr. Becker has investigated

the impact of rapid economic and social transition on eating pathology, suicide, and other

youth health risk behaviors in Fiji, as well as the impact of a school-based youth mental

health intervention in central Haiti. Dr. Becker is founding and past Director of the Eating

Disorders Clinical and Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, an associate

editor of the International Journal of Eating Disorders, past president of the Academy for

Eating Disorders, and served as vice chairperson of the American Psychiatry Association’s

Council on International Psychiatry. Dr. Becker is also past co-editor-in-chief of the journal,

Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry and serves on the editorial boards of Anthropology &

Medicine and the Harvard Review of Psychiatry. She received the 2013 Price Family Award

for Research Excellence from the National Eating Disorders Association and in 2014 received

the Mentorship Award in recognition of “Exceptional Mentorship of Women Faculty” at

Massachusetts General Hospital.

Paul E. Farmer, MD, PhD

Dr. Farmer is Kolokotrones University Professor and Chair of the

Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical

School, Chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at the Brigham

and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and co-founder of Partners In Health.

He also serves as UN Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on

Community Based Medicine and Lessons from Haiti. Dr. Farmer and his

colleagues have pioneered novel, community-based treatment strategies

that demonstrate the delivery of high-quality health care in resource-poor settings. He has

written extensively on health, human rights, and the consequences of social inequality. Dr.

Farmer is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Margaret Mead Award from the

American Anthropological Association, the Outstanding International Physician (Nathan

Davis) Award from the American Medical Association, a John D. and Catherine T.

MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and— with his PIH colleagues— the Hilton

Humanitarian Prize. His most recent books are In the Company of the Poor: Conversations

with Dr. Paul Farmer and Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez; Reimagining Global Health: An

Introduction; and To Repair the World: Paul Farmer Speaks to the Next Generation.

Jeffrey S. Flier, MD

Dean Flier became the 21st Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Harvard

University in 2007. He is also the Caroline Shields Walker Professor of

Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dean Flier is an endocrinologist

and a leading authority on the molecular causes of obesity and diabetes.

His research has produced major insights into the molecular mechanism

of insulin action, the molecular mechanisms of insulin resistance in

human disease, and the molecular pathophysiology of obesity.

Dean Flier has authored more than 200 scholarly papers and reviews. An elected member of

the Institute of Medicine and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, his

honors also include the Eli Lilly Award of the American Diabetes Association, the Berson

Lecture of the American Physiological Society, and honorary doctorates from the University

of Athens and the University of Edinburgh. He was the recipient of the 2003 Edwin B.

Astwood Lecture Award from the Endocrine Society and, in 2005, he received the Banting

Medal from the American Diabetes Association, its highest scientific honor.

David E. Golan, MD, PhD

Dean Golan became Dean for Basic Science and Graduate Education at

Harvard Medical School (HMS) in 2014, after serving as Dean for

Graduate Education since 2008. He is a professor in the HMS

Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology,

where his laboratory applies biophysical and cell-imaging methods to the

study of membrane proteins in blood cells. He is also the George R.

Minot Professor of Medicine at HMS and Senior Physician in the

Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer

Institute, where he sees patients as a practicing hematologist and clinician-teacher. Dr. Golan

founded and directed the core course in pharmacology in the New Pathway curriculum at

HMS from 1989 to 2006. He currently co-directs a translational pharmacology course in the

Therapeutics Graduate Program, the Leder Human Biology and Translational Medicine

Graduate Program, and the Master’s Program in Clinical and Translational Investigation at

HMS. These courses’ guiding principle is that drug mechanisms are best understood in the

context of the physiological, biochemical, and pathophysiological pathways on which the

drugs act. By translating this principle into his course design, Dr. Golan has provided

thousands of Harvard students with a foundation for lifelong learning in pharmacology and

therapeutics. Dr. Golan is Editor-in-Chief of Principles of Pharmacology: The

Pathophysiologic Basis of Drug Therapy, 1st Edition (2005), 2nd Edition (2008), and 3rd

Edition (2011), and co-editor of the Principles of Pharmacology Workbook (2008). The 3rd

Edition of Principles of Pharmacology won First Prize in Pharmacology in the 2012 British

Medical Association Medical Book Award competition. In his role as Dean for Basic Science

and Graduate Education, Dr. Golan advises and assists the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine

on the articulation, design, and implementation of a strategic vision for HMS’s basic and

social science enterprise, including cross-departmental, cross-school, and cross-institutional

initiatives and collaborations. He also oversees the PhD and MMSc programs at HMS and he

works closely with the Dean for Medical Education to oversee the MD-PhD and Health

Sciences & Technology programs. He directs the Program in Graduate Education, which

brings together leaders of graduate education at HMS, the Harvard School of Public Health,

and the Harvard School of Dental Medicine. He also chairs the HMS Division of Medical

Sciences, directs the Harvard Therapeutics Graduate Program, and coordinates the design,

development, implementation, and oversight of the master's degree programs at HMS. Dean

Golan also serves as Special Advisor to the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine on HMS’ global

programs. In this role, he works with HMS and Harvard University in strategizing and

designing HMS’ global education programs and research collaborations.

Jim Yong Kim, MD, PhD

Dr. Kim is the 12th

President of the World Bank Group. Soon after he

assumed his position in July 2012, the organization established goals to

end extreme poverty by 2030 and to boost shared prosperity for the

bottom 40 percent of the population in developing countries. Dr. Kim is

a physician and anthropologist. Before joining the World Bank Group,

he served as President of Dartmouth College and held professorships at

Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. From

2003-2005, as Director of the World Health Organization’s HIV/AIDS Department, he led

the “3 by 5” initiative, which set out to reach the first-ever global goal for AIDS treatment. In

1987, Dr. Kim co-founded Partners In Health, a non-profit medical organization now working

in poor communities on four continents. He received a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and

has been recognized as one of America’s “25 Best Leaders” by U.S. News & World Report.

Richard Mills, JD

Mr. Mills became the Executive Vice President at Dartmouth College in

September 2013. He is responsible for the management and coordination

of the administrative operations of Dartmouth College, including

financial, facility, human resources, and other administrative operations.

In this capacity, Mr. Mills ensures Dartmouth’s administrative resources

are allocated appropriately throughout the institution and administrative

services are delivered in an efficient and effective manner. He reports

directly to the College President and works closely with the Provost and Deans to plan and

manage Dartmouth's strategic initiatives in a number of areas. As such, he has responsibility

for the coordination of all administrative and business matters with the academic, research,

and administrative missions and programs of Dartmouth and for promoting communication

between and among administrative and academic units in support of Dartmouth priorities and

initiatives.

Prior to joining Dartmouth, Mr. Mills held the position of Executive Dean at Harvard Medical

School where he was the senior administrative officer with oversight of finance, facilities,

human resources, information technology, communications and external affairs, and other

business operations. Before joining Harvard Medical School, Mr. Mills was the principal of a

strategic consulting firm, served as a department director and as senior staff Counsel at the

Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, and was a litigation attorney at the Boston firm of

Posternak, Blankstein & Lund.

Merri Pendergrass, MD, PhD

Dr. Pendergrass is Professor of Medicine at the University of Arizona

and Diabetes Program Director for the University of Arizona College of

Medicine. She is an endocrinologist with a long-standing interest in

determining better diabetes management strategies and applying these

strategies to improve diabetes outcomes and enhance patients’

experiences. Her research focuses on practice change and how to assess

and improve the quality of diabetes healthcare delivery. Her role at the

University of Arizona is to foster innovation within the institution and disseminate these

approaches regionally, nationally, and internationally.

Dr. Pendergrass joined the University of Arizona after serving since 2008 as vice president

and national practice leader for the Diabetes Therapeutic Resource Center® of Medco Health

Solutions, Inc. (a pharmacy benefits management company in Fort Worth, Texas, ranked

36th on the 2012 Fortune 500 list, recently acquired by Express Scripts, Inc.). Her

responsibilities included developing, implementing and evaluating the diabetes care strategy

delivered by Medco’s diabetes specialist pharmacists. During this time she also maintained a

clinical practice in diabetes and endocrinology at Parkland Memorial Hospital and was on the

faculty of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas.

Prior to joining Medco, Dr. Pendergrass was associate professor of medicine at Harvard

Medical School in Boston, and was director of the diabetes program at Brigham and Women's

Hospital, Boston, where she also was interim chief of the Section of Diabetes and Metabolism

and associate clinical chief, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Hypertension.

Dr. Pendergrass has also served as director of the Diabetes Program at Medical Center of

Louisiana in New Orleans, where she was on the faculty of Tulane School of Medicine and

worked as a physician with Tulane University Medical Center and New Orleans Veteran’s

Administration Medical Center.

Dr. Pendergrass was principal investigator on multiple diabetes-related studies funded by the

U.S. National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and

the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. She is the author of numerous scientific journal articles and

is a reviewer for several professional journals, including Primary Care

Diabetes; Metabolism; the Journal of Diabetes and Its Complications; Diabetes, Obesity and

Metabolism; and Diabetes Care. Dr. Pendergrass serves on the advisory board of Nature

Reviews Endocrinology. She has been an invited speaker at numerous national and

international meetings and conferences.

Lubna Samad, FCPS, MRCS

Dr. Lubna Samad is a consultant pediatric surgeon dedicated to

improving access to quality surgical care for those that need it the most.

She trained in medicine at the Aga Khan University, and in pediatric

surgery at the National Institute of Child Health in Pakistan and the

Leicester Royal Infirmary in the UK. Her work in public sector hospitals

in Pakistan has informed her understanding of the many individual,

social and institutional barriers that result in poor access to quality

surgical care.

Dr. Samad joined Indus Hospital at its inception in 2007 and has served as Chair of the Indus

Hospital Research Center since 2010. She represents the Indus Hospital Center for Global

Surgery on the Executive Committee of the G4 Alliance. She is currently leading the design

and implementation of several surgical care delivery and patient safety initiatives at the Indus

Hospital, and working to establish new initiatives in South Africa and Ethiopia. Dr. Samad is

a Lecturer at the Harvard Medical School Center for Global Health Delivery–Dubai.

Amer Sharif, MBBS, MSc

Dr. Amer Ahmad Sharif drives medical education at Dubai Healthcare

City (DHCC), the world’s largest free zone dedicated to healthcare. He is

responsible for the development, implementation and evaluation of

Education and Research, one of DHCC’s four core areas of operation

along with Healthcare, Investment and Regulatory. In his capacity, he

manages entities under the Mohammed Bin Rashid Academic Medical Center, DHCC’s

dedicated academic complex, which is home to Al Maktoum Medical Library, and the Khalaf

Ahmad Al Habtoor Medical Simulation Center. The Mohammed Bin Rashid University also

has within it the Hamdan Bin Mohammed College of Dental Medicine which offers masters’

programmes in collaboration with the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

Dr. Sharif also advises on medical education events and conferences at the Mohammed Bin

Rashid Academic Medical Center, and played an integral part in launching in 2014 the UAE

Clinical Simulation Conference to introduce simulation training in medical education in the

region in collaboration with the Society in Europe for Simulation Applied to Medicine.

Prior to joining DHCC in March 2013, Dr. Sharif was the Director of Healthcare

Operations— Hospital Services Sector, Dubai Health Authority. He dedicated a substantial

portion of his 10-year tenure to medical education and research projects in workforce

development, serving in various roles including Health Systems Advisor, Director of Human

Resources, and Director of the Department of Continuing Education.

Dr. Sharif is the project lead for the upcoming Mohammed Bin Rashid University of

Medicine and Health Sciences commencing September 2016, an institution that will offer

undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in various disciplines. Dr. Sharif has authored

and published several papers with a focus on the challenges of the UAE’s health system and

health policy.

Ajay K. Singh, MBBS, MBA, FRCP

Dr. Ajay Singh is Associate Dean of Global and Continuing Education

and Executive Director of the Dubai Harvard Foundation for Medical

Research, both at Harvard Medical School. He is also Director of the

Master’s in Medical Science in Clinical Investigation at Harvard

Medical School.

Dr. Singh completed his undergraduate and medical training in England

at University College School of Medicine. He moved to Boston in 1987 for his clinical and

research renal fellowship at Tufts-New England Medical Center in 1992 and joined the

faculty at Tufts. In 1998, he joined the Brigham and Women’s Hospital as Clinical Director

of the Renal Division and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is

also Director of Postgraduate Medical Education in the Department of Medicine at the

Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Dr. Singh’s interests are in clinical research— with a particular focus on the anemia of

chronic kidney disease— and in education. He is the author of over 150 original contributions

and review articles, as well as author/editor of 11 books in nephrology. Dr. Singh is a Fellow

of the Royal College of Physicians in London UK and has an MBA from Boston University.

Zarir F. Udwadia, MD, DNB, FRCP (London), FCCP

(USA)

Dr. Udwadia is a consultant chest physician at the Hinduja Hospital,

Breach Candy Hospital, and Parsee General Hospitals in Mumbai, India.

A post-graduate of the Grant Medical College, Bombay, he spent five

years training in various centers of excellence in the UK including Sir

John Crofton's former TB unit in Edinburgh and the prestigious

Brompton Hospital, London. He has a special interest and expertise in

drug-resistant TB. About 7,000 patients pass through his busy clinic annually, a number of

whom are MDR-TB patients referred by colleagues from all over India.

TB remains Dr. Udwadia’s overriding passion. He has lectured widely on TB including guest

orations before the British Thoracic Society, the European Respiratory Society, the

International Union Against TB, the American College Chest Physicians, the Harvard School

of Public Health, and the Royal Society of Medicine, London. Dr. Udwadia has over 100

peer-reviewed publications and is co-author of Principles of Respiratory Medicine published

in 2011 by Oxford International Publishers. He was the TB section editor for the journal

Thorax. Dr. Udwadia’s 2011 report of the first patients in India with Totally Drug-Resistant

TB attracted intense media and medical interest from across the globe. Drug-resistant TB

became a national issue, and the Indian health authorities responded by declaring TB a

notifiable disease and increasing the budget and staffing for TB care in Mumbai.

Life, Challenges and Hopes …a photo exhibit focusing on issues faced by many communities in Asia, the Middle East,

and Africa— including climate change, the aging population, conflicts, refugee crises,

urbanization, rapid globalization, structural violence— and on the efforts toward the solutions.

Bangladesh-born Shehzad Noorani is a documentary

photographer with a deep interest in social issues. He grew up

poor in Pakistan and later immigrated to Canada. Noorani has

covered major stories resulting from man-made and natural

disasters in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Sri Lanka, and

Bangladesh. Other assignments for agencies like UNICEF have

taken him to over 30 countries. Noorani received the Mother

Jones International Award for Documentary Photographer for

his film ‘Daughters of Darkness’; he also received an

honorable mention by the National Geographic Magazine for his project ‘The Children of

Black Dust,’ where he documented children inhaling millions of fine carbon dust particles

from breaking batteries throughout the day.

Notes