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Godwin Pius Ohemu is on a mission to fight a serious threat to human health that could cause 10 million deaths annually by 2050: antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Nigeria, his home country, carries a disproportionately high burden of AMR threat and inadequate preparedness. Surveillance is crucial to capture the scale of the threat and mobilise concerted efforts, but like many low-income and middle-income countries, it faces unique obstacles.
Ohemu plans to change that — starting with a Postgraduate Diploma in Global Health Research from the #1 university in the world: the University of Oxford. “I aim to not only meet the research needs of my community but also contribute to internationally recognised standards of research excellence,” he says. “Ultimately, I aspire to obtain a PhD in Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases and AMR, enabling me to contribute to research organisations dedicated to mitigating disease burdens and promoting equity in global health research.”
Where better to do this than at the university with the highest volume of world-leading research and the best minds shaping health policies in industry, government and academia? “For me, meeting Professor Trudie Lang was a game-changer,” he says. “Her work in global health research, especially in Africa, where I come from, blew my mind. Her commitment to narrowing the gap between research communities in the Global North and Global South resonated deeply with me.”
Source: University of Oxford
Designed for those involved in the funding, collaboration, design, delivery or regulation of research in high- or low-income countries, the PgDip covers the whole spectrum of health research. Students gain a deep understanding of the cycle of a research study within the context of low resource settings considering vulnerable populations and regulatory and ethical requirements, alongside robust study design and operational delivery.
Ohemu loves the programme’s part-time, 100% online format. Classes are engaging and juggling full-time work is a breeze. It’s practical too — the PgDip aims to equip students with real-world skills for designing and implementing impactful global health research across many varied topics and population settings. “Live class sessions enable interactive engagement with the course lecturers and my colleagues for one hour, facilitating discussions on prerecorded lectures while accommodating my schedule without disrupting my primary responsibilities,” he says.
The PgDip is part of the Nuffield Department of Medicine’s range of doctoral and taught master’s programmes that empower students to understand and respond to the health challenges of today and tomorrow. Its latest addition is the full-time face-to-face MSc Health Service Improvement and Evaluation (HSIE) — an apt choice for early and mid-career professionals who want to improve the quality, safety and effectiveness of health services around the world.
DPhil Forum July 2023. Source: University of Oxford
Unlike traditional Master of Public Health programmes, the MSc HSIE has a specialised curriculum focused on practical skills tailored to the demands of those wishing to advance today’s health systems.
“The strength of our approach lies with our focus on providing cutting-edge theoretical approaches and methods together with the practical skills – such as technical writing, teamwork, and basic programme management – to ensure that students can apply their new-found skills in the workplace,” says Dr. Sebastian S. Fuller.
Fuller brings decades of experience in academia and beyond — and in multiple countries — to his role as Course Director. “Before achieving my PhD, I both worked and volunteered to improve health and implement research in the US and southern and western Africa,” he says. “Because of my own career journey, I understand how experiences outside of academia can be leveraged to better understand how theory might work in practice.”
As employability is at the heart of the programme, the programme uses real-world examples as case studies to guide learning, including projects that mimic work students would perform after they graduate. “Health systems professionals must learn to work in multi-disciplinary teams and draw from a broad range of theories and disciplines,” says Fuller.
“We aim to give students practical learning through activities that show how some of the world’s most pressing health challenges might be tackled by the application of state-of-the-art theories, drawing on those from the behavioural and organisational sciences and on implementation frameworks. The course is guided by systems thinking, which means we will look at how aspects of the health system, such as clinical workflow and technologies, interact. This will allow students to acknowledge the properties of complex systems with techniques for determining ‘what works’ in such situations and better understand how outcomes of interventions emerge.”
As a team, students will complete a project to design, introduce and evaluate an intervention to be assessed by a panel of experts. Individually, each will develop a mock funding proposal for their dissertation in collaboration with experts in their chosen settings as well as from the University. “These projects give students concrete experience to add to their CVs in addition to their MSc from the University of Oxford,” says Fuller. “We feel it is important for our students to bring their lived experience to the course to anchor their education in real-world impact.”
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