July's Member of the Month - Patrick Mayne

Member of the Month is a new feature for the Global Health blog, where we learn more about a member who has contributed and encouraged others to contribute to insightful and engaging discussion. If you notice that a community member deserves to be noticed, be sure to nominate them by contacting me. We'll interview the member of the month, to learn about their approach to global health engagement. The member is chosen at the beginning of the month, and we run their interview in the middle.

Patrick Mayne (also our first Comment of the Week) is our first Member of the Month. In his interview, Patrick touches on many of the ups and downs of global health, but ultimately he feels that it is rewarding and extremely necessary work. He says that global health is everyone's health, which makes it a basic and fundamental common interest.

What do you do for a living?

This is a tough question...I'm currently working as a temp in DC to pay the bills. And generally anger my parents about not being home for holidays and birthdays.

How/Why did you get to be doing this?

Going into college, I actually thought I wanted to be a doctor, but was drawn pretty much entirely to social science, international development and language classes--kinda made me realize I wasn't really cut out for the clinical scene.

Once I started studying abroad, I basically never stopped, and that coupled with an interest in health, it all sort of came together.  I interned with CARE in Bolivia right after graduating (and I have to be honest, I got a lot more out of it than they did, since of course I had no idea what I was doing), and have pretty much been continuing in that ever since.

Of course, if you're asking about the temping, I have to come back to the states occasionally for new visas, and working in DC is about as convenient as you can get.

How did you become interested in global health?

I've been surrounded by great, inspiring friends and people who have always pointed me in good directions for reading, work, discussion and school.

Is there a certain area of global health that you have a special interest in?

Right now, the program I'm starting up is based firmly in the vein of community-led health programs.  I think it's really important that communities in which "global health" is practiced are recognized as the experts on their own conditions, and involved in these projects as such.  I think small community-led projects are the future of global health, and I'm excited to be involved in one now.

How important is it for others to become involved in global health, and how can they do so?

Again, hard question.  Getting "others" involved (and here I'm assuming you're talking about others from the US and western Europe) is surely pretty necessary--the biggest problems of global health are generally problems of the post-colonial world, and it's pretty unfair to tell them to deal with it themselves after us northerners raped and pillaged the global south (and, uh, sometimes continue to do so, in the form of debt, exploitative contracts, etc.).  But on the other hand, increasing the number of northerners involved tends to increase the tendency to work like it's a white man's burden kind of thing, which is definitely not the kind of thing we need right now.

But, if someone were still determined to get involved in changing health outcomes in other people's countries, I'd recommend a lot of reflection, reading and talking with professors.  Be critical of your own intentions, and the intentions of your employers, and make sure you're never treating anyone as research subjects, or patients, or people in need, but as individuals with complex, usually contradictory histories and identities.

What roadblocks do you see in global health?

I'm not sure if we've all ever fully gotten over the white man's burden, or colonialism and racism in general.  I think the biggest problem I've come across is people (who are awesome, capable, well-trained and talented people) generally going into it believing that they're doing good, and that that belief then excuses them from critically interrogating their activities and intentions.

Why does global health matter?

By definition, global health is the health of everyone, no matter where you are.  And since in a lot of cases, health can be roughly equated to life, or at least quality of life, it's a pretty basic prerequisite for having any sort of society that we would want to live in.