Cohort Bonding Picture

This is very much delayed but I wanted to share the one picture I ended up with from our cohort bonding time in DC. Alisha and Brea I know you have some others, so you should e-mail them to me and post some of them. :) Yay for APHA and cohort bonding. I miss you all!

PS - Aaron and I have some exciting news...

I think we just bought a house. :) Pictures and more details to come later...

So can we mail it within state lines?

Hi all! Congrats on all the recent and upcoming happenings! Sorry I couldn't meet up with those that were in D.C. Hope it all went well!

For those that were upset that they couldn't host pox parties, I have even worse news. It's illegal to mail chicken pox virus to people, too. At least, across state lines. Also, that's gross. Enjoy the article. If only there were a way to protect children against getting the disease....oh wait :)

APHA Time

Hey hey party people! So I am just wondering who all will be at APHA in DC in just a few short days now. I want to make sure that we have adequate cohort bonding time. What are everyone's plans in terms of arriving/departing DC, hotels, must-see conference sessions, nightly plans, etc? I'll also probably send out a cohort e-mail since we haven't had one of those going for a while... but make sure to comment, respond or call me so we can make sure we meet up!
Miss you all!
CR

Elder Oaks for Public Health

Hi team!

At last night's CES fireside, Elder Oaks talked briefly about truth and tolerance. At the end of his talk, he spoke about how it is appropriate to advocate for laws and policies that uphold broad principles of the Gospel. Public health is one of the fields in which he stated it was appropriate to advocate policy!

The whole talk is great. You can watch it here:

http://bcove.me/9blmjiz6

Hope everyone is doing well...

- J.O.

WHO-Geneva

Just a quick shout out to Cohort 7! I arrived in Geneva this morning for a week of meetings at WHO. I already caught up with a current MPH student and her husband who are just finishing up internships. Pete, Mark--any suggestions of what to do/see/eat while I'm here? I have four days.

I'll keep you posted on how the meetings go!


Congrats to Ashely and Brian and little baby Michael!

Another Cohort Baby

This blog has been neglected for far too long. In the spirit of increasing traffic here, I am happy to announce that after 39.5 long weeks Michael Alexander Suker has finally arrived!

"Baby Mikey" arrived on Friday, July 8th at 12:59pm. He is a such a cute guy, we are so excited to finally meet him!

Michael Alexander

7lbs, 8oz

21 inches

HIV media campaign in Kenya

Hello public health friends!

I recently attended a lecture about MTV's efforts to spread information about HIV in Kenya. MTV made a Gossip Girl-like soap opera to spread information about HIV prevention and awareness.

I put the link to the first episode below. I think there are 3 episodes so far. They are available on vimeo for free if you want to watch all of them.

Shuga Episode 1 from mtv staying alive on Vimeo.

Enjoy! I hope everyone is doing well!

- Judy

Congratulations Cohort 7!

The last few weeks (and let's face it, last few hours) have been very exciting for Cohort 7!! We have had a wedding and three babies.

Congratulations to Liz and Joseph!

Congratulations John and Jenny on Baby Abby!

Congratulations Eli and Sarah on Baby Makenzie!

and finally...

Congratulations Brad and MaryAnne on Baby James!

We could not be more excited for all of you guys- way to go Cohort 7, we cant wait to see pictures!

Public Health at it's best...

Hey guys! First off, I miss you all like crazy, I really do! I'm getting much better at my DC tour guide skills, so please plan a visit!

Secondly, I don't know how many of you still check this blog regularly, but I wanted to share a particular post with you from my friend's blog. Her blog is private, but she gave me permission to share this wonderful post.

Free Gift

A couple of weeks ago, I was surprised to receive a valuable offer in the mail.

I was so excited to receive a potential gift in my mailbox that I didn't notice the return address.  

A big thanks goes to the Marlboro company for their thoughtfulness.  They must have heard I was pregnant. 

Len's Devotional

Hello all,

Len gave the devotional last week. Brad and I just watched it. It was incredible. I'm embedding it here so you can watch it too. It doesn't follow the sound exactly, which is a bit annoying, but we tried playing it on different sites, and it didn't make a difference. We love Len!

Breastfeeding friendly?

I know it has been forever since I looked at this blog let alone post on it but it occurred to me that it was way overdue. I recently got a promotion at the hospital with my newly acquired MPH degree. I am now the Nutrition Support Expanded Role RN on the Children's Surgical Unit. Which really means nothing to you, but as part of this position I have been placed on the breast milk task force for the hospital. (MaryAnne and Ashley be proud.) This task force was created due to some problems IHC wide in the handling and storage of breast milk. Due to the illness of some of our babies their moms have to pump their breastmilk. It is then feed to the baby through a tube that goes from their nose to their stomach. So we freeze and store extra milk and even increase the amount of calories in the moms breast milk. So we are basically swimming in breastmilk and not following the rules set up to protect the milk. Breast milk was even fed to the wrong baby in an IHC facility! (Thankfully it was not a Primary Children's.) Anyway I have now been charged to set up a group of nurses who will serve as the Lactation Support team for the surgical unit. They will be in charge of helping and supporting breastfeeding moms evaluating latch scores if the babies are breastfeeding and auditing nurses to make sure they know the proper procedures that come with handling/storing breast milk. Sadly out of 100+ nurses on the surgical unit only 5 have responded that they are willing to complete the training necessary to be part of the Lactation Support group. What happened to breastfeeding friendly nurses? It appears I have my work cut out for me. Wish me luck!

That's Public Health

I was surprised by a blog posting that I read this morning. A college-aged student from BYU was making fun of the government telling Americans to "eat less." The idea was that it's sort of big brother-esque to have the government telling us what to eat now. Little does he know that the government has been releasing dietary guidelines for many years. The funny thing (or not so funny) was that he made a joke about your mom being fat, then said he had no idea that your mom was fat (mine is not, actually), when the likelihood is that most moms are fat, as are most adults in the US (2/3). Sad. So, yeah, I'd say we do need the government telling us what to eat, just as we would want the government to give us direction about responding to any other disaster that is killing 2/3 of the country.

HHS released the newest dietary guidelines at an event at GW yesterday. Here's the link.

Another Cohort Addition

Well we thought it is about time we put all we learned in Women's Health to good use...

Meet baby Foulger.

(He/she is waving at you with both hands if you look close)

We are due August 18 and couldn't be more excited. Im pretty worthless these days, but am already smitten (even though he/she looks more like an alien than a baby).

Miss you all!!!

I love my husband!

So Brad may have won biggest public health nerd yesterday . . . I wanted him to do this post and he can edit as he sees a need, but I'm going to do my best to recount the story he told me late last night. (Forgive me, it was about 11:30 and I'm spent by then, so I don't know if I'll get all the details word for word.)

He is in charge of setting up the microphones, etc. for his med school class. Yesterday was the first day that he's needed to change the batteries in the microphone. After he took the batteries out, he was haunted with memories of Dr. Cole's class and simply would not throw them away. He took them with him to get the new ones and asked the person in the room where they dispose of batteries. The person said, "We put them in the trash." Brad responded with something like, "No, I can't accept that. I have a degree in public health and will not do that." Love it! So dogmatic. No equivocations, no room for arguing. I feel like he had one more snooty retort as well, but, like I said, it was late and this is as much as I can remember.

I'm so happy to be married to such a public health nerd!

Happy 2011

Hello MPH Cohort 7,

Happy 2011! I thought in honor of the New Year I would get my act together and post on here.

So how are things with each of you? Everyone travel safe over the holidays? Jobs and school going well?

Things in Texas are going well. I got a new job (thank goodness) at the beginning of December and have been going 100 miles an hour since then. I am working as a healthcare consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), and it is great. Brian works there too and I had hoped to see him a bit more, but no such luck. My second week I was assigned to a project in Pittsburgh, PA where it looks like I will be for the next 3-6 months. I fly out Monday morning and fly home Thursday night, not to fun to be away, but I do get a lot done when there is nothing to do but work and sit in my hotel room. If anyone is every in Pittsburgh come visit (why anyone would be there is another question).

A couple of months ago someone mentioned the idea of an “East Coast Reunion”, it might be fun to do that while I am still headed out there every week. Brea, I think we should look into it.

Anyway on to more news, we are expecting a baby! Yes, you read that correctly, and I should clarify and let you know it is a baby human, not a new pet (my brother needed clarification). We are expecting a little boy (95% sure, found out this morning), due the second week of July. So far so good, except he wasn’t cooperative at all this morning when the doctor was trying to determine gender.

I hope everyone is doing well!! Happy New Year!