Celebrating 10 years of Global Health Is Local Health at Ochsner

Ochsner continues to honor its mission to Serve, Heal, Lead, Educate, and Innovate on a global scale.

Signing the Non-Binding Memorandum of Understanding with the Haitian Health Ministry to identify and develop academic and clinical exchanges between University of Queensland, Ochsner Clinical School and Hôpital Universitaire Justinien.

Ochsner Global Health Celebrates UQ, Clinical School’s 11^th Graduating Medical School Class

Early into the dawn of the 21^st century Ochsner had the bold vision to create a global medical school in partnership with the University of Queensland in Australia. This vision was inspired in response to a need that was articulated in the 2010 Lancet Commission which stated that:

“All health professionals in all countries should be educated to mobilize knowledge and to engage in critical reasoning and ethical conduct so that they are competent to participate in patent and population centered health systems as members of locally responsive and globally connected teams. The ultimate purpose is to assure universal coverage of the high quality comprehensive services that are essential to advance opportunity for health equity within and between countries”.

Now 12 years later, as we emerge from the global disruption that was caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we appreciate how prescient that vision was. The pandemic made it very clear what our Chief Academic Officer, Leonardo Seoane, MD and our Medical Director of Global and Public Health, Yvens Laborde, MD have been espousing for years: Global Health is Local Health in that the drivers of poor health outcomes and disease burden are universal. They do not respect borders.

The University of Queensland (UQ) and Ochsner Health System (OHS) have partnered to answer the call of training the global physicians of the 21st century who fully understand the challenges of our interconnected world. The creations of our highly successful and innovative UQ-Ochsner Clinical School model allows students to have a global health experience while training across two continents, leveraging the combined strengths and resources of two world class institutions.

The students over the past 10 years have had excellent global health learning experiences in India, South America, Africa, the Caribbean as well as locally as part of our Medicine in Society rotation.

We are fortunate to have renowned attending staff and physician leaders who are also committed to our global health is local health mantra like Rajasekharan Warrier, MD, Leonardo Seoane, MD, Obinna Nnedu, MD, Cuong Bui, MD, Rajan Patel, MD, Blake Saul, MD, Denrick Cooper, MD, Kathy Jo Carstarphen, MD, Anna Suessman, MD, George Loss JR, MD and many others at Ochsner. These incredible physicians are fully committed to global health education and continue to make contributions to promote health and health equity for all people worldwide.

Yvens G. Laborde, MD
Medical Director, Global Health Education, Ochsner Health
Medical Director, Public Health, Ochsner Health
Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Queensland Ochsner Clinical School
Assistant Clerkship Director, Medicine in Society, University of Queensland Ochsner Clinical School

View Dr. Laborde's profile in the Ochsner Journal