"UCSF in India" Film Series Showcases Fruitful Partnerships
UCSF debuts a series of three films that document how UCSF is fulfilling its advancing health worldwide™ mission by focusing on partnerships in India to address HIV/AIDS, tobacco use and eye diseases.
See videos here:
- Building Capacity, Battling Blindness
- Cigarettes Clouding the Economic Rise
- Combating HIV/AIDS Through Collaboration
UCSF’s growing involvement in global health spans more than 100 countries with more than 400 faculty members engaged in extramurally funded international research and patient care programs. Student interest in global health at UCSF mirrors the national trend with enrollment in global health education programs doubling in the past three years alone.
Chancellor Sue Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH, says she is thrilled with the scope of UCSF’s global health efforts, which address all five of her top priorities: patients and health, discovery, education, people (particularly management and diversity), and the business of UCSF.
“I want the work that we do at UCSF to matter even more for the world than it does today,” she said recently at a forum on why global health matters. “And when I think about the future and the importance of global health … it just thrills me. We’re going to make a difference in the world.”
Among the recent developments in global health:
- UC launched the UC Global Health Institute, which aims to galvanize and harness the educational, research and health care expertise of hundreds of UC faculty across the 10-campus system to address the increasingly complex global health problems and needs of the world’s most vulnerable populations
- UCSF participated in the first meeting of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health held at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, where more than 250 researchers, professors, administrators, and students talked about the challenges facing the field of global health
- UCSF signed memoranda of understanding with Aga Khan University to promote equitable human advancement and social justice in the less privileged parts of the world and with King’s College London to explore opportunities for scholarly interaction, cooperative research, faculty and student exchange and
- UCSF introduced the country’s first-ever master’s degree program in global health, emphasizing a multidisciplinary approach to prepare graduates for careers in international policy, health care, research or development.
UCSF has been making a difference on a number of important global health initiatives, Desmond-Hellmann noted, giving much of the credit for the progress to Haile Debas, MD, executive director of UCSF Global Health Sciences and former chancellor.
Debas, who is featured in one of the “UCSF in India” films, says that UCSF is building a foundation for global health that will last for generations to come.
About the Film Series
Produced by UCSF Public Affairs, the “UCSF in India” series is part of an overall strategy to communicate UCSF’s contributions and accomplishments, including its impact and influence in global health.
In fact, the series depicts how UCSF is achieving four major directions outlined in the UCSF Strategic Plan: serving the community, translating discoveries into improved health, fostering innovation and collaboration and educating future leaders.
“I am delighted to share the ‘UCSF in India’ series of films with UCSF’s vast external and internal audiences,” says Barbara J. French, associate vice chancellor of University Relations. “The series gives extraordinary insight and brings to life UCSF’s commitment to global health care, research and education.”
Shipra Shukla, a former UCSF Public Affairs journalist who has since started her own video production company called Kathaka (a name derived from the Sanskrit word meaning storyteller), conceived of and created the three short films. All three films were shot last summer on Shukla’s trip to India and edited this year in San Francisco.
The daughter of parents of Indian descent, Shukla conducted interviews with UCSF’s experts in the fields of HIV/AIDS, tobacco education and control and ophthalmology and their collaborating colleagues and patients in India.
“During interviews with Indian health leaders, women with HIV, young cigarette smokers, and UCSF faculty and trainees working in India, one common theme resonated from each video shoot—the need to support long-term collaborative relationships to see sustained global health changes,” Shukla said. “I hope these films help tell the story of UCSF’s collaborative efforts in India.”
The three films and those featured are:
- “Building Capacity, Battling Blindness:” This film showcases the longstanding partnership between UCSF’s Francis I. Proctor Foundation for Research in Ophthalmology, and the Aravind Eye Hospital, where physicians and students treat corneal ulcers and cataracts, in India, home to the largest blind population in the world. Interviewees include John Whitcher, MD, MPH, professor of ophthalmology and physiology, Thomas Lietman, MD, professor in residence, Nisha Acharya, MD, MS, assistant professor, all from the Proctor Foundation.
- “Cigarettes Clouding the Economic Rise:” International anti-tobacco crusader Stanton Glantz, PhD, professor of medicine and director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, figures prominently in this film, which reveals the growing use of tobacco among India’s young women and examines the influence of smoking in Hollywood and Bollywood films. Interviewees include UCSF and Indian scholars who are working with the Center for Tobacco Research and Policy at UCSF.
- “Combatting HIV/AIDS Through Collaboration,” is a film featuring the work of Maria Ekstrand, PhD, associate professor at the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, who talks about her work with women with HIV/AIDS in India, where issues of stigma and gender affect prevention the role of AIDS and adherence to antiretroviral therapy. Interviewees also include Sir Richard Feachem, KBE, PhD, DSci(Med), professor of global health at UCSF and UC Berkeley. From 2002 to 2007, Feachem served as founding executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and Under Secretary General of the United Nations.
A limited number of copies of each film are available on DVD. For more information about the “UCSF in India” series, contact Lisa Cisneros, executive producer of the series and assistant director of UCSF Public Affairs, at 415/476-3256 or by email.
Related Links:
New Initiatives Highlight UCSF’s Commitment to Advancing Global Health
UCSF Today, Nov. 16, 2009
UC launches institute to address global health’s $75 billion impact on California
News Release, Nov. 9, 2009