Dear Colleague,

 

As we talk about the Lancet Commission Report at meetings and conferences around the world, we emphasize is that it is meant to incite not dictate instructional and institutional reforms. The recommendations of the report, Health Professionals for a New Century: Transforming Education to Strengthen Health Systems in an Interdependent World, need to be adapted to suit the needs and variable contexts of individual countries.  

 

We have already witnessed much progress in disseminating the report's findings at the national level. Many of our original commissioners have planned launches of the reports in their own nations. For example, Dr. Huda Zurayk, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the American University of Beirut, convened deans of faculties, ministers, and others who have used the report to make recommendations for Lebanon. China launched its own China Commission, coordinated by Commissioner Ke Yang, Executive Vice President of Peking University and Peking University Health Science Center.

 

Commissioner Patricia Garcia, Dean of the School of Public Health at Cayetano Heredia University in Peru, hosted three meetings in Peru in July (see story below). Thanks to her, we now also have the report translated into Spanish as well as a report in Spanish on the three meetings in Peru. A Spanish powerpoint presentation of the report's findings are now posted on the website, as is a video presentation in Spanish made by Commissioner Jaime Sepulveda at one of the meetings in Peru.

 

There are implementation challenges of specific recommendations that individual countries and regional efforts have begun to address. Most notably, the Asia Network held a workshop in August to develop a common survey instrument for situation analysis (read story below).

 

Ultimately, our hope is that we can all learn from these national and regional efforts. We envision the production of an extensive set of recommendations with different templates designed to meet the needs of different national contexts.

 

As always, we invite you to forward this newsletter to colleagues and to follow our progress on the website at http://www.healthprofessionals21.org.

   

Best regards,

 

 

Julio Frenk, Dean, Harvard School of Public Health and Commission Co-chair 

 

Lincoln Chen, President, China Medical Board and Commission Co-chair