Congratulations to HEB Senior, Victoria Esiobu,
and her team ‘Project Connected Care’ for placing 2nd in the
2015 UF Global Health Case competition
The HEB department would like to congratulate 4th year undergraduate student Victoria
Esiobu and her team for placing second at this years' Global Health Case Competition.
This Saturday, the 2nd annual UF Global Health Case Competition (GHCC) competition took
place in UF Health Auxiliary Conference room. The purpose of the UF GHCC is to bring
together students from multiple disciplines and provide them with the opportunity to tackle
current and critical global health issues in a collaborative and competitive environment.
Modeled after Emory University's GHCC, this competition seeks to promote interdisciplinary
approaches to solving real-life issues and simulating future workplace settings.
The 2015 UF Global Health Case Competition dealt with the shortage of health care
professionals in the country of Sierra Leone. This shortage has been magnified with the recent
Ebola outbreak in the area, Sierra Leone records some of the worst cases of the virus, where
there are only 2 physicians for every 10,000 people. Participants of the GHCC had 48 hours to
formulate a 15 min presentation on realistic and sustainable strategies that would address the
shortage of professional health workers with legal factors, political factors, and cultural factors
in mind.
Victoria Esiobu, a HEB Senior, and her team ‘Project Connected Care’ created a plan that
focused heavily on cultural competence; recruiting/training community health workers in order
to alleviate the demand on existing health workers; and creating incentive plans to retain native
born Sierra Leoneans who attend medical school abroad. The team received a cash prize of $400.