JUN-A-4
MY OVERTURE TO THE ELDP PROGRAM PRIOR TO MY FIRST VISIT
AND FOLLOWING MY FILLING OUT THE APPLICATION FOR THE GSEHD GRADUATE PROGRAM
From: Glenn Geelhoed
To: "mgorman@gwu.edu".GWIA01.getthere
Date: 6/2/03 1:56PM
Subject: Re: Return from Embangweni Hospital after eventful climax inTheatre salvaging an intrabdominal ruptured pregnancy and having justarrived in Lilongwe
I have been looking forward to meeting with you on Thursday, on my first visit to the Ashburn campus. I appreciated your calls and emails, and the opportunity to review the ELDP.
I have put the two dates that David will be holding the ELDP seminars into my calendar after receiving the packet that Sarah Banks had so kindly forwarded, so I hope to visit also on Sep. 21 and Nov. 16, which at this point still fit neatly between my international schedules.
I had looked over the packet "Impacting Your Changing Environment" and was very impressed with what I had seen. So much so, in fact, that I filled in the application form and wrote the check for the application fee, and even typed up a "Statement of Purpose" (attached.) This would make for efficiency if I am seeing you on Thursday and might drop the completed application packet off at my initial visit if you think it appropriate!
Several of the items listed may not necessarily apply to me as a continuing graduate student here at GWU, such as another round of pre- graduate testing through the GRE. I will learn more about that when I talk with you on Thursday
Thank you for forwarding the application packet to me.
GWG
>>> "Margaret DeLaney Gorman" <mgorman@gwu.edu> 05/19/03 11:51AM >>>
Any possibility for you to come to GW's VA campus during June? We're
holding classes for four of the cohort June 2nd- 20th (consecutive days,
(am- 9pm), with various guest speakers and session. It would give you a
chance to meet with some of the executive students, sit in on class,
and talk with Dave and I more about the program.
Margaret (202.425.7111 cell) (6- 8394 va campus)
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
GLENN W. GEELHOED
Application to ELDP of GSEHD of GWU
I am Professor of International Medical Education in GWUMC, a position in which I have tried to bridge barriers impeding resolution of complex problems in developing and developed worlds through the common humanitarian concerns of health, health care and education for enhanced capacity for each. The artificial, but very real, barriers to understanding among peoples of this troubled world can be political, linguistic, geographic, technological, cultural and economic, despite a common biologic heritage and uncommon aspirations among each of the globe’s citizens. Health and an environment that might promote health and prevent disease are such fundamental hopes of human beings in whatever social context they might find themselves that these bridges might serve as immediate real, virtual and metaphoric means of human development toward the fullest possible potential whatever constraints may be imposed.
I have previously sought to develop the component parts of medical education from acute care experience in tertiary hospital academic surgery, from the intensive interaction of one-on-one patient care through the larger constructs of population concerns in public health. (See “Medicine and Health” section of the Home Page http://home.gwu.edu/~gwg ) But I have maintained a larger focus on global problems, particularly in less fortunate populations (whether within or outside geographic or political boundaries), which I sought to understand through study of international affairs and anthropology. Most recently, I had attempted to employ the multidisciplinary approach of the Human Sciences to address inequities in health and health care in analyzing how we “treat others.” I had found myself frustrated by the post-modernism solipsism of representation of others only as reflections of power politics, one of the very obstacles I had been seeking to surmount in developing human potential across barriers.
I had been introduced to the GSEHD and the ELDP program by my former resident colleague, who has become my boss—Skip Williams, now Dean and VPHA of GWUMC and Provost of GWU, who had recommended me to the Human Sciences Program. I have subsequently learned much more about ELDP from Huda Ayas in the office of International Medical Programs, and have learned from my colleague Marie Borum’s thesis in the ELDP. Because of my career in international medical education, I believe that the ELDP program would have been a more appropriate degree direction for my efforts than the Human Sciences doctorate, and would like to explore the applicability of this study of human and organizational development potential in international health. I bring to the graduate study of education a career-long investment in academic and applied interests in international education as well as a ready-made laboratory of methods and testable outcome results. I had earlier hoped to enter just such a program before its inception when I had completed the opportunity as Clinical Scholar of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and have followed the incentive from this earlier program in a quarter century of education across borders. I have developed international humanitarian and educational programs based in individual volunteerism and would like to institutionalize the efforts into larger organizations of collaboration for sustainability. I hope to continue these efforts with the enhancement that the ELDP is sure to stimulate.