Mark Arnoldy (front row, left) and his fellow students gather to commemorate the GHE graduation ceremony on July 23, 2010.

“Perhaps one of the more insightful moments of the 2010 Global Health Effectiveness (GHE) Program occurred during a case-based Introduction to Global Health Care Delivery course when Dr. Paul Farmer challenged the class to consider the “cost” of a HIV program that has achieved “scale” but allows for over 20% loss-to-follow-up in its patient population versus a program that is less expansive but loses less than 1% of its patients.

The debate that ensued revealed so much in regards to the tensions that the GHE Program is great at unearthing – questions of access at the risk of quality, questions of how to balance calculations of cost effectiveness against truer costs of inaction, and how to effectively merge vertical and horizontal investments in health care delivery systems.

To me, the GHE Program is distinctive because of its focus on pragmatism, and the ability of the program’s diverse participants to lend insights and relevant real-world context that cannot be found in even the most insightful academic reviews. That is what happens when populations with experiences as varied as leading divisions of health ministries to nurses responsible for leading mass vaccination campaigns sit side by side and study the real world practice of organizations.

I could think of no better program to yield insight for global health practitioners that need to operate across the spectrum from clinical care to programmatic design to organizational development. And I myself have benefitted immensely from such training. A year and a half removed from my completion of the 2010 Global Health Effectiveness Program, I am now privileged to lead Nyaya Health, an organization delivering comprehensive care to Nepal’s poorest, according to the lessons taught in the program. And the benefits haven’t stopped there – I write this while on the way to New York where I am meeting with a new set of partners that were brought to us through classmates in our GHE class. That’s precisely the kind of diverse pragmatism the program delivers on.”

Mark Arnoldy was a 2010 GHE Program participant, and shortly following his completion of the program, he became the Executive Director of Nyaya Health.

The deadline to submit an application to the July 2012 GHE Program has been extended to March 1, 2012. Apply today!