Careers in Global Health: A Q and A with Faculty Director Ashti Doobay-Persaud
Dr. Ashti Doobay-Persaud is the Faculty Director for the Masters of Science in Global Health program. She is an Assistant Professor of medicine at Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine in the Division of Hospital medicine and the director of the Global Health Hospitalist program that focuses on providing trained faculty to staff Hillside's clinics in Belize. She is also the chair of Facuty Development in Global Health providing opportunities for those interested in volunteering abroad as well as connecting faculty and students who are already participating in global health. During medical school and residency she provided clinical care in medicine and partnered with two NGOs Himalayan Health Exchange on a longitudinal basis and also worked in South Africa as a Yale Johnson and Johnson scholar in an ARV clinic. After completing residency she participated as a physician volunteer at ASRI clinic in Borneo and partnered up with an NGO called Hillside Healthcare International, an NGO providing primary care in rural areas in Belize. Doobay-Persaud earned her MD and BA from Tufts University School of Medicine. She completed a residency in Traditional Internal Medicine at Yale New Haven Hospital.
1. How does the Master of Science in Global Health (MSGH) program prepare students for careers in or related to global health?
To quote the MSGH program’s career profile, “Through multidisciplinary courses that emphasize both theory and practical application, students will learn how to improve healthcare outcomes and systems, work effectively in challenging healthcare settings, navigate global issues, evaluate results, and more.” That is to say, the program provides students with concrete competencies they will need when approaching employers, as well as an industry perspective that is crucial in understanding how healthcare is delivered across the globe.
We also offer a practicum for students to add value to a collaborator’s goals, in countries such as Uganda, Ecuador, and South Africa, by partnering with socially accountable high quality international organizations.
Also, as the program is offered entirely online, we prepare students for the professional expectations of collaborating with remote partners and the challenges of distance, time, and different cultures.
2. What industries are students in when they choose to enroll in the program?
Some of our students have professional skills that are health care affiliated or unrelated, but are a necessary and high-level skill (like - lawyers or information technologists) who want to move into a new global position or within their current job. Other students are already working in global organizations when they enroll, but are trying to learn how to optimize their work by learning and understanding global challenges and perspectives as well as specific skills like grant writing, ethics, governance and policy, understanding scientific research, etc. Many of our students are clinical health professionals and so they come into the program with specific goals to translate their skills into the global health space to understand how best to contribute and best practices in partnerships.
3. What misconceptions do prospective students often have about global health careers? What should they know before applying to the MSGH program?
Many students come into the program with unrealistic expectations about working in the field abroad or do not have a clear career path, which makes employment challenging. Our ideal student is a person who already poses professional skills and wants to work in the global health space. We want people who already have an idea of where they see themselves in the field – NGO program/project manager, global vaccine or pharmaceutical work, EHR implementation in resource-limited settings, etc.
Imagine being a creative writing major. Very few graduates likely go out and immediately, or ever, become full-time authors or writers in the traditional sense. With global health, it is similar. There’s no easy way to just go out in the world and do global health, but to have a global health sensitivity and understanding means you look at the world critically and appreciate global challenges, the importance of local context, systems, aid, policy, and interdisciplinary cooperation.
In other words, global health requires intersectional, interdisciplinary collaboration and needs all fields of thinking and practice when it comes to healthcare delivery. Global health needs IT professionals, business professionals, marketing professionals, as I mentioned already. To deliver healthcare and run a hospital or clinic you need everyone. To borrow from Paul Farmer, this is why it is so difficult to explain the needs in global health– stuff, space, staff, systems –you need it all. Incoming students gain important competencies in areas of global health, but aren’t always prepared for both the routine and unfamiliar challenges of jobs in the industry.
4. What long-term career considerations should students make when entering the global health field?
For students changing industries, one consideration to make is that it’s fairly difficult to transfer over with the same salary and level of seniority they may have in another field. There’s a certain level of starting over, and many nonprofits, clinics, and NGOs won’t necessarily be as lucrative as other industries. Also, when planning a career, consider your personal and career goals in terms of travel— consider working locally with global health or development organizations or employers. Although, the program has been around a short time, our students have shown us that some can come to the program and gain the global health knowledge and continue onto a professional skill-specific school—like medical, or PA school. It’s always good to know your 10-year plan when pursing any graduate degree. In addition, if you are planning a global health career and know a graduate degree is requisite for a job you want, it would be important to know what the best training is for that specific job.
5. What are the challenges of careers in global health or related fields?
There are career challenges in terms of global health jobs. Clear career paths are not yet as evident, because traditionally many come from different fields—typically healthcare, public health, economics, or public policy—and that makes it difficult to offer a menu of careers to students. Also, many international organizations are trying to build local capacity and offer management jobs in-country (which is great), so we encourage students to think about working domestically on global health issues and know their jobs may not involve living abroad. Of course, for jobs that require long-term placements abroad, students also must consider personal/family obligations, financial impact, gender, orientation, race, etc.
6. Who is hiring in the industry? Where do students look for jobs after graduation?
It is hard to know as we don’t have the data yet to say where our students look for jobs. Some studies have shown that jobs are in the international NGO and governmental sector in program and project management. Several schools are now collecting alumni data and will have more information soon.
7. What resources are available through the University for students in the MSGH program?
The MSGH program provides robust career and practicum resources for students, along with access to distinguished faculty who excel professionally and academically in their respective fields. The MSGH program is a partnership between the School of Professional Studies and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine’s Center for Global Health, meaning students learn directly from medical specialists and researchers working at one of the world’s most renowned medical centers. As the first completely online global health master’s program, students also have access to classmates with distinct perspectives from different geographies.