Public Health SPOTlight Podcast

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Navigating the ever-evolving landscape of public health, Sujani reflects on the past year's growth and anticipates the exciting new horizons that await in 2024. This episode is a celebration of the milestones achieved and a teaser of the novel ventures on the horizon for PH SPOT. It's a narrative that intertwines personal growth with professional development, underlining the importance of taking a step back when needed and returning stronger. The community is invited to join in this celebration and look forward to the new opportunities that 2024 promises in the world of public health.
Key messages from this episode:

• The year 2023 was a period of significant growth for PH SPOT, one marked by the phspot.org platform reaching over 43,000 global users in 2023. Among the most sought-after pages on the website were the Public Health Career Club, a downloadable comparison of Canadian MPH programs, and a popular blog post comparing MPH and MSC degrees.
• Sujani also candidly shares the pressures that come with managing a growing platform while balancing the demands of motherhood and a full-time job.
• She extends her gratitude to the dedicated team members, Lis, Stephanie and Janice, who have been instrumental in keeping PH SPOT thriving, emphasizing the collective effort behind the platform's success.
• Looking ahead, PH SPOT aims to continue its trajectory of growth with ambitious goals, including increasing the reach of its weekly public health newsletter to over 10,000 subscribers. The podcast, which has published 47 episodes in 2023 and boasts over 22,000 downloads, will take a more intentional approach to programming, seeking to cover a diverse range of topics and stories that resonate with the public health community.
• The LinkedIn network has also seen remarkable expansion, quadrupling in size to over 10,000 members. This surge in engagement is a testament to the power of community and the shared passion for public health that brings individuals together from around the world.
• The Public Health Career Club, which celebrated its first anniversary, has been a cornerstone of PH SPOT's offerings. With 190 active members participating in weekly virtual talks, training events, and in-person meetups, the club fosters a supportive environment where public health professionals can grow and thrive. Guest mentors and speakers contribute their expertise, further enriching the experience for club members.

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Join The Public Health Career Club: A global membership community where public health professionals connect, learn, and support each other in building meaningful and impactful careers.

Go from feeling confused, alone and overwhelmed, to feeling confident and in control of your life and career!

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In this episode, Sujani sits down with Sue Griffey of SueMentors. They go on a journey through the four acts of Sue’s life and discuss her relationship with public health, mentorship, and ways in which you can take control of your career.

You’ll Learn

• How Sue’s nursing career and global work led to her public health career
• Sue’s experience working in various fields of public health and how the perception of “job hopping” is changing
• Tips on taking control of your professional development
• The different types of mentorship and what is most appropriate in each situation
  • The value of finding support and relying on your peers as informal mentors
• Four actionable steps to pulling together your career threads

Today’s Guest

Sue Griffey, DrPH, BSN, has been SueMentors for more than a decade, giving professionals the HOW to get to their next career path step. She focuses on building and using professional presence and professional branding. Sue has a global mentoring practice for all levels of professionals in transition. Her hallmark is using real-world examples to demonstrate her practical advice for professional presence. Sue has mentored for 10 different global public health and other programs. She has worked with more than 600 mentees individually and directly influenced more than 2000 through her short courses, guides, materials, webinars, and workshops. She had a 3+-decade of career leading global health and program evaluation research, working and living globally.

Resources

• Connect with Sue on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Sue’s mentorship courses

Support the show

Join The Public Health Career Club: A global membership community where public health professionals connect, learn, and support each other in building meaningful and impactful careers.

Go from feeling confused, alone and overwhelmed, to feeling confident and in control of your life and career!

Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text!

In this episode, Sujani sits down with Dr. Terry-Ann Lynch who is the current Stakeholder and Patient Advocacy Lead at Sanofi Pharmaceutical. They discuss the role that public health professionals play in the pharmaceutical industry, skills needed to break into the industry, and how the impact of the work compares with more traditional public health paths.

You’ll Learn

• How Terry-Ann first discovered the field of public health and her first public health jobs of being a health inspector and a nutrition educator
• What made Terry-Ann interested in working in the pharmaceutical industry
• The role that public health professionals play in the pharmaceutical industry and how the pharma environment is changing to favour the integration of public health
• What skills are valuable when breaking into pharma
• What a day in the life of a public health professional working in the pharmaceutical industry can look like
• Comparing the impact of work in the public industry vs in pharma
• Tips on how to smoothly transition into the field and where to find mentors in newer fields

Today’s Guest

Terry-Ann Lynch has over 17 years of unwavering dedication to Public Health and has traversed a dynamic path that spans clinical research, advocacy, and program management. Currently positioned as the Stakeholder and Patient Advocacy Lead at Sanofi Pharmaceutical, Consumer Healthcare., Her work has transcended boundaries and left an indelible mark. She has worked at several pharmaceutical companies including Merck and Pfizer as the Patient Advocacy and Health Equity Lead across disease states. Prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry, Terry-Ann worked in the clinical research, program management, and data analytics arenas managing various studies funded by private and governmental agencies.

In her current role, she has the privilege of collaborating with patient advocacy organizations across a spectrum of disease states. Her mission is to address unmet needs, particularly focusing on health inequities in marginalized communities. Drawing from an extensive background in clinical research, she forges collaborations with public health departments, non-profit organizations, and medical societies to unveil educational gaps and facilitate interventions that tangibly enhance patient outcomes.

Terry-Ann obtained a master’s degree in public health from West Chester University of Pennsylvania where she is also pursuing excellence in her current Doctoral program in Public Policy. Her area of focus in Public Policy and Administration is a testament to her resolute commitment to dismantling access barriers that hinder the pursuit of health equity. This journey is driven by an unshakable belief in the power of policy to reshape the landscape of healthcare and uplift lives.

Terry-Ann has a relentless dedication, innovation, and a fervent desire to foster change. As she continues to navigate the intricate tapestry of Public Health, she is motivated by the promise of a future where health disparities are history and every individual's well-being is a priority.

Resources

• Connect with Terry-Ann on LinkedIn

Support the show

Join The Public Health Career Club: A global membership community where public health professionals connect, learn, and support each other in building meaningful and impactful careers.

Go from feeling confused, alone and overwhelmed, to feeling confident and in control of your life and career!

Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text!

In this episode, Sujani sits down with Dr. Firdosi Mehta, an adjunct professor at York University. They discuss his previous work at the WHO, the eradication of smallpox and polio, and his current work with mentoring and educating students and young professionals along their public health journeys.

You’ll Learn

• What motivated Dr. Mehta to pursue public health after his time in medical school
• Dr. Mehta’s memories of the WHO’s work in eradicating smallpox and his own work towards eradicating polio
• How kindness, compassion, and empathy is at the root of public health
• Networking and reputation building tips for job seeking
• Dr. Mehta’s mentoring experience and advice for students and young professionals

Today’s Guest

Dr Mehta has over 30 years of Public Health experience, more than half of which were with the WHO. He has worked in several countries and regions of the world. Dr Mehta completed his medical education in India after which he served in the Indian Navy Defense Services. He then served in the Ministry of Health, Sultanate of Oman in various capacities for 10 years, the last being Director of Surveillance and Disease Control. Dr Mehta then joined the World Health Organization and worked in Somalia from 1998 – 2002, where he was responsible for supporting the control of TB and all other communicable diseases in a complex emergency situation. He moved from Somalia to Indonesia in 2002 in the capacity of Country Advisor Tuberculosis Control program (Mega High burden country) for seven years. Dr Mehta subsequently moved to Sri Lanka in 2009 as the WHO country Representative until 2014. His experience in emergency and humanitarian action, communicable disease control, health system issues, mental health and a keen focus on addressing non communicable diseases in Sri Lanka have been well recognized and acknowledged. He is an Adjunct Professor at York University and University of Toronto in Canada, as well as a senior Mentor on several mentoring platforms. In recognition of his contributions to the Global Health Program at York, a Global Health student prize has been named after him in 2022. He is a member on the Governance and Advisory committee on Human Trafficking at the Peel Institute on Violence prevention, Family services Peel Toronto. Also a member on a Lived experience Advisory committee on research at the Centers for Addictions and Mental health (CAMH) Toronto. Member on the Steering Committee on Research for Mental Health Equity in the Asia Pacific – Digital (REMAP-D) based at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Advisor on “The Young Innovation Leaders Fellowship” Nigeria, which is a platform created by Hutzpah Centre for Innovation and Development - a social enterprise aimed at promoting innovation across sectors in Africa

Resources

• Follow Dr. Mehta on LinkedIn
• Read more about Ali Maalin, the last man with smallpox
• MultiPod Mentoring
• Learn more about Family Services of Peel

Support the show

Join The Public Health Career Club: A global membership community where public health professionals connect, learn, and support each other in building meaningful and impactful careers.

Go from feeling confused, alone and overwhelmed, to feeling confident and in control of your life and career!

Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text!

Show Notes

This is the first episode Sujani sat down to record since COVID-19 became a pandemic. And we know that it is a tough time for every single one of us. We are new to physically distancing ourselves from families and friends, and holding game night and coffee chats over a video call are just not the same...and we now have to adjust to having children and the entire family at home 24/7, and for some, the transition to working from home has been tough. We will be the first to say that we don’t like this way of living and wish things were different. But, it’s so important for us to sacrifice these things, and to bear some of this pain because it does save lives!

Given this current situation, and acknowledging that we may not be mentally ready to focus on building our careers the same way, we wanted to change things up for the next couple of podcast episodes (or more). These episodes will focus on slightly different topics ranging from tips to help you cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as fun behind the scenes reflections of PH SPOT to give you a bit of “entertainment” listening. If you have other ideas do email them to us, and we will incorporate them into a future episode. Once we feel that we are ready to get back to our regular show, we will start rolling those episodes out!

In this episode, Sujani sits down with two members from the Canadian Partnership for Women and Children’s Health (CanWaCH). CanWaCH catalyzes Canadian collaboration among 100 Partners who are improving women’s and children’s health in 1,000 communities worldwide.

The interesting part is that CanWaCH is a completely virtual workplace with 22 employees across Canada. Given they have been working in virtual workplace for a number of years now, we reached out to them so that they could offer up all of the lessons they’ve learned to help you, your organization and employees manage working in a virtual environment as a cohesive team. I talk to two individuals from CanWaCH’s team – Julia Anderson who is the Chief Operating Officer and Erin Jex, the Gender Equality Officer at CanWaCH.
You'll Learn:

• About the physical environment that Julia and Erin work from to give us a picture of their workspaces (Julia lives with 8 other people, and Erin has 1 other person)
• The makeup of the CanWaCH team, and their environments
• Whether COVID-19 has changed anything for them or their team, with respect to working from home
• The technology and tools that their team uses which enables them to work collaboratively and efficiently (and tips around this)
• The challenges they still face, despite having been a virtual workplace for a number of years
• As management, the importance of setting your intentions right from the beginning and reiterating it (constantly); and equally important is the trust you must build with your team
• Onboarding a virtual team member; how orientation is set up for these employees
• Tips and considerations to build relationships with your team members given the absence of regular face to face interactions
• The silver lining in working from home, and what they enjoy about a virtual workplace

Support the show

Join The Public Health Career Club: A global membership community where public health professionals connect, learn, and support each other in building meaningful and impactful careers.

Go from feeling confused, alone and overwhelmed, to feeling confident and in control of your life and career!