Burnett School of Medicine Students Learn About Addressing Public Health Issues

FORT WORTH – Getting medical students’ early exposure to public health issues and how to address them can go a long way in shaping the future of health care. For one medical student at the Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University, public health issues created by the Ebola Virus Outbreak in 2014 and HIV in West Africa is part of what inspired her journey into medicine. 

Tyra Banks, MS-1 at the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU, was born in Monrovia, Liberia, in West Africa. 

“I actually started my journey to health care through volunteering,” Banks said. “I also used to volunteer with HIV patients with my aunt.” 

At the height of the Ebola outbreak, she described how difficult it was for local health care workers to prevent the spread of the virus.  

“Everybody that had Ebola or were recovering from Ebola were all in the same area,” Banks said.  

Banks’ story paralleled with stories shared by Ikwo Oboho, M.D., ScM, Director of Infection Prevention and Control Program for U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs in North Texas, who spoke to first-year Burnett School of Medicine students.  

Dr. Oboho talked about how she’s addressed public health issues throughout her medical career.  

“Public health looks at a much bigger approach to targeting and understanding the challenges that people face in accessing health care,” Dr. Oboho said. “Also, designing strategies that will be far-reaching than just the impact of one patient it targets a population.”  

Public health is the science of protecting and improving the health of people and their communities. This work is achieved by promoting healthy lifestyles, researching disease and injury prevention, and detecting, preventing, and responding to infectious diseases, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) Foundation.  

Dr. Obho, was invited to campus by Ric Bonnell, M.D., Director of Service Learning at Burnett School of Medicine. Her career path in infectious diseases and public health began in her home country of Nigeria.  

“Growing up in Nigeria, I got to see a lot of infectious diseases and how it affected people,” Dr. Oboho said. “When I came to America, I wanted a specialty that allowed me to take care of the whole person and infectious diseases is one of those ways.”  

In her current role, she is the first person of African descent to hold her position as a physician and commissioned officer designated by the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) in North Texas. Her day-to-day work focuses on providing clinical care and infection prevention for veterans. In her discussion to the medical students, she focused on how her work on outbreak responses in Africa helped shape how she practices medicine today. 

“I knew that my passion was in HIV work, but I also wanted to learn how to analyze data,” Dr. Oboho said. 

In the early 2010s, she joined the Division of Global HIV and TB at the Centers for Disease Control and worked for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which focused on increasing access to HIV treatment in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in West and Central Africa. “It’s actually the largest global initiative for any single disease,” Dr. Oboho said.  

She also worked in Republic of Côte d’Ivoire, which is on the southern coast of West Africa, during the Ebola outbreak in 2014.    

“We did a lot of preparedness,” Dr. Oboho said. “They didn’t have vaccines at that time so what we were doing was giving supportive care. Giving people intravenous (IV) infusions.” 

Dr. Oboho stressed the importance of understanding public health as the students continue their journey into medicine. The Burnett School of Medicine puts an emphasis on preparing medical students to care for patients through a public health lens with its unique service learning curriculum.   

“It helps to make you think of the patient that you’re going to take care of as a whole person,” Dr. Oboho said. 

Medical students may be fascinated with science and theory but understanding that there are other challenges that affect a patient much more than their illness is important, Dr. Oboho added.  

“If you can develop strategies to address that and reduce barriers, your patients are more likely to take that treatment you have given them,” Dr. Oboho said.  

The messaged resonated with Banks. She hopes to return to Liberia at some point in her medical career and share the knowledge she’s gained.  

“My goal is to go back to Liberia long term to provide some services because that’s home and that’s where I got my foundation,” Banks said.  “I’m very privileged to have the opportunity to study in the U.S.”