Gender

Among the 24 Mentors, there are 4 women and 20 men. In contrast, the 30 Mentees in the program include 23 women and 7 men. This gender shift is an indication of the historical trend in the fields of Medicine, Public Health, and Global Health in the last 50-70 years, a trend that is expected to continue in the next decades.

Geographic distribution

Our 54 Mentors and Mentees were born in or are currently working or studying in 47 different countries:

• Central and West Africa: Cameroon, DR Congo, Ghana, Guinea

• North Africa and the Middle East: Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Palestine, Tunisia

• North America: Canada, Mexico, United States

• Central America: Panama

• South America: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru

• English and Dutch Caribbean: Curaçao, Jamaica, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago

• South Asia: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal

• South East Asia: Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam

• East Asia: Hong Kong

• Western Europe: Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland

• Northern Europe: Denmark, Sweden, United Kingdom

• Southern Europe: Italy, Portugal, Spain

• Eastern Europe and the Caucasus: Romania, Georgia

• Oceania: Australia

The collective international experience of this group is probably closer to one-half of the world’s countries if we take into account the number of foreign countries in which MultiPOD Mentors and some of the Mentees have worked or provided technical cooperation during their decades-long careers.

Academic and Professional Background

Almost all of the Mentors (21 of 24) are physicians. Among the 30 Mentees, the situation is reversed. There are only three medical doctors and one medical student. 

The remaining 26 young women and men have been trained in the following disciplines:

Political Science, Informatics, Neuroscience, Dentistry, Nursing, Parasitology, Microbiology, Physical Therapy, Business Administration, Food and Nutrition, Psychology, Medical Anthropology, Biomedical Sciences, Epidemiology, Healthcare Navigation, Pharmacy, Sociology, Life Sciences, Health Economics, International Development, Management, Policy Analysis, Finance, Health Systems, and Environmental Studies, among others.

It is now evident that the field of Global Health is becoming more multidimensional and interdisciplinary, as more and more young practitioners from different fields of study and expertise contribute their own perspectives and methods to improving health across the world.

Languages

Although English is our working language, MultiPOD Mentoring's Mentees and Mentors are native speakers of or fluent in more than twenty languages. These include the six official languages of the United Nations (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish), three of the newly proposed UN official languages (Bengali, Hindi, and Portuguese), and other Asian, European, and African languages (Burmese, Cantonese, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, German, Italian, Odia, Romanian, Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, and Yoruba)

This has important practical implications for the future expansion of our program. Some of our Mentee-Mentor pairs feel more comfortable and are already working in French, Spanish, Burmese, Italian, Arabic, Dutch, Hindi, and Portuguese. As MultiPOD Mentoring extends its reach and expands, we plan to engage Mentors who speak additional languages to facilitate the participation of Mentees from other countries and areas of the world, who may not be fluent in English.

List of Mentors and Mentees

List of all the Mentors and all the Mentees that participated in the Class of 2017.