Georgetown Alumnus Speaks at Global Health Conference

News Archive


April 8, 2017 - Despite the rapidly changing political environment in much of the world, Georgetown alum Mark Dybul (C'85, M'92), MD, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said he is cautiously optimistic and sees “great opportunity” in the current global health environment.
The renowned global health leader and professor of medicine at Georgetown made his comments Friday during the opening plenary session of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH) annual conference in Washington.
“Remarkable Time”
As many would expect, Dybul wasn’t the first at CUGH to publicly acknowledge the unease about the political environment. “I understand that people are focused on the U.S., but the global atmosphere is really important,” Dybul said as he pointed out the “remarkable time” of economic and political change throughout the world.
The self-described cautious optimist described two paths forward. “One path is to look inward and backward usually with fear and its constant companion, hate. Or you can look outward and forward -- hopefully.”
Useable Data
Dybul noted that global health doesn’t exist in a vacuum.  “We have to see where the world is going and fit into that context.”
Dybul sees data as important leverage in the current environment.
“There’s a huge opportunity,” he said. However, he added the global health community needs to do a much better job at capturing and translating the data in a way that is useable by policy makers.
Broadening Reach
Dybul pointed out an additional opportunity in forwarding global health objectives.
“We need to bring more and more of the people from the national security apparatus and the defense apparatus into the conversation. They are some of the best advocates,” he said.
“We should never lose the humanitarian piece, because it is huge and important. Most people do not go into politics because they want to ...

Read More