November 1, 2023 — More than 90 present and former fellows from the Takemi Program in International Health converged at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in October for a two-day celebration marking this system’s 40^th anniversary. The occasion included a symposium with talks centered on digital health opportunities and challenges, and networking alternatives for this worldwide group of well being coverage consultants.

The Takemi Program was launched in 1983 by former Harvard Chan School Dean Howard Hiatt and by the late Taro Takemi, who on the time was president of the Japan Medical Association. They conceived of this system as a technique to convey collectively world consultants from quite a lot of fields—together with drugs, public well being, economics, legislation, and politics—to seek out efficient and equitable options to the event and distribution of well being care sources. Since then, 323 Takemi Fellows from 61 nations have taken half in this system.

Fellows audit courses at Harvard, conduct their very own analysis, attend weekly seminars, and be taught from one another—with quite a lot of flexibility. It’s an opportunity for mid-career professionals to take time away from their each day obligations to discover massive questions and change-making work. Many have gone on to serve in management positions in their very own nations, comparable to ministers of well being, deans of faculties, and founders of organizations.

“The Takemi Program is recognized at the School and around the University for its capacity to attract future leaders in public health and for its contributions to global health,” Interim Dean Jane Kim stated on the celebration’s opening reception, held October 20 at Harvard Faculty Club. “Indeed, every global health meeting these days has former Takemi Fellows in attendance, on topics from health financing reform to malaria control to innovative strategies for advancing universal health coverage.”

Symposium on digital well being

At the following day’s symposium, Takemi Program Executive Director Jesse Bump—a fellow in 2010–2011—mirrored on the essential function the fellowship performed in his personal profession. “The program makes us better versions of ourselves,” he stated.

Following their time in this system, fellows be a part of a world cadre of consultants who proceed to collaborate and assist one another.

“The wonderful networks among the fellows beyond national boundaries can be the most important driving force to create a more peaceful, stable, and healthy world with no one left behind,” Keizo Takemi, Taro’s son and a fellow in 2007–2009, stated in remarks delivered remotely on the symposium. Takemi was lately appointed Japan’s minister of well being, labor, and welfare.

Talks on the symposium included a keynote deal with from África Periáñez, co-founder and CEO of Causal Foundry, an organization that makes use of machine studying to personalize drugs, well being care supply, and affected person assist, particularly in low- and middle-income nations. Takemi fellows introduced analysis on a variety of matters together with makes use of of cell know-how to deal with gender-based violence in rural Nigeria, and the function of digital well being in Taiwan’s nationwide insurance coverage system. Prakash Gupta, a fellow from this system’s first cohort (1984–85) returned to average a panel. Gupta, a distinguished power illness epidemiologist, is the founding director of Healis-Sekhasaria Institute of Public Health in Mumbai, India.

Yutaka Aso, a member of the Takemi household who runs a big hospital in Japan, stated he could be taking again classes realized on the symposium. “The digital health tsunami is coming,” he stated, noting each the alternatives and potential dangers in that space.

The advantages of being collectively

In his closing remarks, Michael R. Reich, this system’s longtime director and Taro Takemi Professor of International Health Policy Emeritus, stated that the assembly was each a substantive exploration of the analysis and a chance for non-digital communications. “It reminds us, having come through the pandemic, that in-person meetings actually make a difference, because of human contact and the unexpected things that happen when you talk to other people—and the opportunities for learning.”

Reich closed the celebration by passing the torch to his successor Aya Goto, Professor of Health Information and Epidemiology at Fukushima Medical University in Japan and a Takemi Fellow in 2012–2013. Goto will be a part of Harvard Chan School as Takemi Professor of the Practice of International Community Health and director of this system on January 1. 

—Amy Roeder

Photos: Susan Symonds; Reich and Goto courtesy of Michael Reich