Growing up in Cheshire, England, Ewan Bradley couldn’t escape frequent interactions with the healthcare system. He experienced reoccurring cholesteatoma, an abnormal growth of skin cells in his left ear that required yearly surgeries until he was 14. Despite losing 60 percent of the hearing in that ear and the stress of being in and out of the hospital, he knew he was fortunate.
“I was lucky to have access to healthcare,” says Bradley, who is among the 35 students starting the Master of Science in Global Health program at the Duke Global Health Institute this fall.
“It’s one of the reasons why I want to learn more about global health,” says Bradley, who learned more about the gaps in care patients face when healthcare systems lack sustainable infrastructure as a student at Loughborough University. “I wanted to be a part of an international cohort and learn from different perspectives. This was the only [graduate] program I applied for.
Bradley, who will also compete on the Duke track and field team, adds to the international flavor of the new class, the sixteenth cohort since the master’s program began in 2009. More than 60 percent of the class comes from outside the United States, with students from Canada, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Jamaica and Saudi Arabia. They speak 22 languages, including French, Japanese, Twi, Urdu and Zulu.
The new class joins 32 returning MS-GH students. Along with 64 undergraduates who have declared a global health major and 92 pursuing a global health minor. Around 100 graduate students are taking courses as part of the Graduate Certificate in Global Health.
In addition, 21 students from Duke Kunshan University’s (DKU) Master of Science in Global Health program will spend their semester at Duke to take classes and participate in research. it is the largest group of DKU global health students to study at Duke.
Among them is Yijun Shao who is in her second year of the global health master’s program at DKU. From Jiangsu, China, she studied medicine and public health as an undergraduate and grew more interested in global health after seeing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people living in remote areas of China.
“As a public health student at the time, it made me think about what I can do for people who need help the most,” says Shao, who is studying how mobile health can improve access to health services. “COVID-19 showed how important global health is and many diseases aren’t just in one country, but can spread to the whole world. It shows how we are all linked together so closely.”
This year’s MS-GH cohort includes three students in the Accelerated MS-GH program, which allows Duke undergraduates to complete the master’s degree with only one additional year of study. Two students in the class are part of the Global Health Pathway for Residents and Fellows, which provides opportunities for medical residents to participate in global health research and training.
Joe Egger, Ph.D., DGHI’s director of academic programs, says the broad range of backgrounds represented in the new class underscores a strength of DGHI’s education.
“The diversity of perspectives and experiences that all of these students bring is a special feature of Duke’s global health program and greatly enhances the ability of our entire DGHI community to work to achieve health equity around the world,” he says.
