Bethesda

Orientation at NIH: July 7-20, 2010

We finished up our orientation and training sessions in Bethesda yesterday. Now I am in Boston attending a mini-orientation that is specific to my project in Botswana. The picture here is of Gaone (my 'twin'), Sten Vermund (the Director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health and FICRS-F Principal Investigator) and me standing in front of a fountain at the Stone House on the NIH campus. Our orientation included many engaging and distinguished speakers from the Global Health community. Sessions included presentations from many of the directors of various institutes/ centers throughout NIH, bio-statistics and grant writing lectures, research reports, and seminars on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and tropical diseases. I am humled and inspired by what I have learned so far- and I am looking forward to the road ahead. I feel especially blessed to have been able to spend the past 2 weeks with the other 2010-2011 Fogarty scholars and fellows who are now going out to locations across the globe to continue to learn, grow, and work to improve global health for the future.