Participation in Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers triggered in me an interest toward people’s health, and this is why I am now here earning my MPH. My first year consisted of stuffing myself full of knowledge every day, and I was still anxious as to how much I had actually attained when I took off to my internship in my second year. And now, being on-site is such an excitement. One can learn much just by tagging along with specialists, and gain firsthand feel of the way projects are moving. What I have seen and felt on-site, and the knowledge I have crammed into my head are mixing and churning, trying to create something new. I am struggling every day, but am also being helped through letters from my classmates who are somewhere in this world as well as the people related to the projects. There is much to be absorbed every day.
The reason I chose the Graduate School of International Health Development is because it is a multidisciplinary program that cultivates practical human resources, and because there are teachers with ample field experiences in Asia and Africa. After working at a hospital as a nurse, I participated in the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV) in the Republic of Ghana as a public health nurse. While helping out at a rural healthcare center, I became involved with school healthcare education and training of traditional midwives, and realized how the status of healthcare in these districts are influenced by so many elements including public policies, poverty, the environment, and culture. Right now, in my first semester of my first year, I am attending courses in various fields, finding clues to the unanswered questions I had during my JOCV activities, and learning and realizing new things every day. In my first semester, there will be the short-term field training as well as applied courses in international healthcare policies, management, etc., and I expect to learn many things that will help in my future practice. Nagasaki has much history, and is a great environment to be in. I intend to fully utilize these two advantageous years to improve myself and find my future path.
What triggered me to go into this field was the realization I had of the importance of international healthcare when I was an undergraduate student. After much thinking on what I can do and what I must do, the conclusion I reached was the Graduate School of International Health Development. I think that the curriculum of the Graduate School of International Health Development, where students first learn specialized knowledge and then experience on-site training, is very meaningful in that it prepares students for future involvement in international healthcare. I was a humanities major and fresh out of college, with very little experience, and I was very anxious when I first enrolled. However, the professors are gracious and thorough in their teachings, enabling me to keep up with my courses. They also lend sympathetic ears to matters outside of classes, which is very encouraging to me. Various students with professions/experiences such as doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers are studying here, and I feel that the opportunity to share information and knowledge with such people is very valuable. Being in such an environment gives me the confidence that even a beginner like me can do it! I intend to make every effort to make these two years my first important step in my future involvement in international healthcare.