Global Health Sciences

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Upcoming Events

Complex Humanitarian Emergency (CHE) Simulation Leadership Training

The United Nations defines a complex humanitarian emergency (CHE) as “a humanitarian crisis in a country, region, or society where there is total or considerable breakdown of authority resulting from internal or external conflict and which requires an international response that goes beyond the mandate or capacity of any single and/or ongoing UN country program.” Such emergencies require adapted, focused, and pragmatic field responses to be organized within short time frames, often under difficult accessibility, security, and climate conditions. Over the years, operational efficiency in the field has increased thanks to research carried out during CHEs.

The UCSF CHE Leadership Training Program is centered on an exercise that will recreate refugee camps along a civil unrest area (based on real events along the Chad-Sudan border), in a remote Bay Area location over two days and one night. UCSF and UCB global health leaders-in-training will learn skills as they create a detailed service delivery plan to provide relief to Darfur refugees, role-played by volunteers and faculty. Students will perform assessments of the situation and then develop plans for security, nutrition, water and sanitation and medical care to meet the health needs of the simulated population. These tasks will be completed under an increasingly intensifying security situation with military checkpoints, rebel attacks, and security evacuations modeled after recent actual events along the Chad-Sudan border. Training will foster decision-making and team-building. Students will be evaluated by faculty and peers on the quality of their final plan.

Program Goals

1. Using a multidisciplinary approach, train health care and other professionals to provide leadership as first responders during local and global humanitarian emergencies.
2. Develop an experiential curriculum to impart team building and other specific skills to those in global health training programs.

Eligibility

The program is open to students enrolled in the following programs: UCSF Global health Pathway, Framework, Global Health Clinical Scholars and UCB School of Public Health.

Curriculum

Through experiential education, the following specific skills will be learned:

• Leadership skills, including team building, in crisis situations
• Survey design and administration
• Development of an implementation plan, a monitoring plan, a budget and a transition/exit strategy
• Basic emergency medical training in resource-scarce settings
• Public health interventions in crisis situations including water, food, and sanitation plans
• Presenting to and interacting with the media
• Ensuring personal safety and navigating security situations

Upcoming Trainings

May 9th and 10th
Location: Anthony Chabot Campground, Oakland
Program Flyer

To learn more about the CHE Leadership Training Program, contact

Vaishali Patel
Global Health Program Analyst

Program Director:
Chris Stewart, MD, MA
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