UCF Leads Inaugural Global Health Summit in Malta, Expands Collaborative Research and Student Exchange Opportunities

Public health experts from the Americas, Europe and Africa gathered in Malta this summer at a UCF-led Global Health Summit to strategize how to make the vision of a healthier world a reality.

Although the representatives from these nations may seem culturally dissimilar, the students and faculty in attendance united to find common ground by identifying key opportunities to advance public health for all and establish the framework for future summits and student exchange programs.

UCF partnered with the University of Malta to host the summit, which was themed "Harnessing Data and Multilateral Collaborations to Advance Population Health." Nearly 60 people from Peru, Ghana and American universities attended, including three UCF medical students who presented research results and data analyses that may eventually inform public health interventions or policy.

"Data is the lifeblood of modern innovation," says Elena Cyrus, a College of Medicine Population Health Sciences faculty member, in her opening remarks at the summit. "In global health, it empowers us to uncover patterns, predict outbreaks, personalize treatments and allocate resources where they are needed most. From tracking infectious diseases to optimizing healthcare delivery, data is not just a tool - it is a catalyst for change."

Big Data in a Small Nation

The summit materialized after a digital health conference where Cyrus and Eric Schrimshaw, chair of the Department of Population Health Sciences, spoke with Maltese faculty and discovered many similarities.

"We both have the economic benefit of tourism, but that also comes with the burden of tourism and risk of infectious disease," Schrimshaw says. "We're both semi-tropical warm countries that could have both tropical diseases that are emerging or transported to this area."

Malta is 10 times smaller than Rhode Island, and it has a single-payer healthcare system. These factors can make for streamlined public health research and expose the UCF students to new healthcare systems.

"It's really important for our med students to see how other healthcare systems work," Schrimshaw says. "With the single-payer system in Malta, they have medical records for everyone in the country. That means that they have what we would call population-level data. This is really useful from a research standpoint to better understand public health."

The summit was not a traditional large conference with keynote speakers and minimal interaction, Cyrus says. Instead, small groups came together to share strategies and build upon central themes, including big data innovations and gaps in clinical care.

The experts determined that paramount issues in public health worldwide include mental health and the growing need to harness precision medicine.

Cyrus says she and her colleagues are working on a paper in anticipation of publishing their findings for a wider academic audience.

Reflecting on the summit, she says it was both informative and productive, and the faculty and health care experts representing multiple international universities and institutions were eager to continue advancing global health.

"When we concluded, there was a certain level of energy from the delegates," Cyrus says. "Everyone asked if UCF would be willing to co-host again."

"This global conference is a natural extension of our mission to train 'The Good Doctors' who are prepared to address health challenges across a variety of settings," - Omar Martinez, UCF professor of population health.

"The Good Doctor" at Home and Abroad

The summit also helped to guide the next generation of UCF doctors in their pursuit of becoming "The Good Doctor," by blending their classroom and clinical experiences with research conducted over three weeks preceding the summit.

The "Good Doctor" is introduced to all UCF students on the first day of medical school by Deborah German, vice president for health affairs and the College of Medicine's founding dean. She asks new students to visualize the traits of a doctor they would want caring for the person they love most. Students call out traits that German writes on a blackboard, which is displayed at the med school year-round. Those characteristics are the students' contract with their faculty, patients and each other as they become "The Good Doctor."

"This global conference is a natural extension of our mission to train 'The Good Doctors' who are prepared to address health challenges across a variety of settings," says Omar Martinez, a UCF professor of population health, who attended the summit. "Such experiences not only deepen cultural awareness but also sharpen research skills and foster adaptability, qualities essential for delivering effective care and advancing health in an interconnected world."

Nolan Kline, an associate professor of population health, also participated in the summit and says he was most impressed with how the students conducted and presented meaningful research on a compressed timeline.

"Seeing students' high-quality work underscores the value of providing multiple training and research opportunities to students," he says. "The conference showed ample opportunity for cross-cultural collaboration on urgent medical and population health topics that are common in both the U.S. and Malta, including traveler health, preventing infectious disease and understanding the multiple determinants of communicable disease."

Student Research Endeavors

Second-year medical student Riley Nguyen analyzed Maltese mortality data to help refine and pinpoint potential interventions for specific demographics. Nguyen examined different age groups and ethnicities to find commonalities and differences and then consulted with local experts to better understand how to tailor patient care.

She says the experience helped prepare her for presenting findings in an academic setting.

"I'm learning so much about not only medicine, but also the collaborative effort of people from different countries," Nguyen says. "My project was very preliminary, but I was able to present at the conference and do an oral presentation. I want to continue working with my project and connect through different databases."

Nguyen says she believes her involvement and networking at the summit will help her further her education.

"I met people who would still work as a clinician while doing research, and it was really interesting to see so many people doing that," she says. "I feel like I now havePubl so many connections that I can really push forward and into a career in global health."

She was inspired to pursue a career in global health after volunteering at a clinic in Nicaragua in high school. Nguyen says the trip to Malta further invigorated her interests.

UCF med students Riley Nguyen (left) and Meltem Tutar (second from right) collaborated with international medical professionals at the summit. (Photo courtesy of Meltem Tutar)

"Working in global health is very humbling and humanizing and has given me a perspective that has made me want to do medicine even more than I already did," she says.

Meltem Tutar, a second-year med school student, says the three-week experience enriched her understanding of how to use data for improving health. Tutar has a background in data science and worked in Ghana for a few years, so undertaking a career in global health is a way to synthesize her interests.

Tutar's research project examined large swaths of injury data including statistics on self-harm, occupational injuries and domestic violence. She used the information to examine specific demographics and see which groups may be most susceptible to certain risks and what opportunities may exist to prevent future injuries.

"With this knowledge, you may have more targeted public health interventions," Tutar says. "If you have a limited number of resources and you can only target [a certain] amount of people - and you know [some] are more at risk - you may try to personalize and target them more."

The variety of topics explored at the summit and the optimism of those in attendance helped to create a sense of unity in addressing global health challenges for everyone, she added.

"It can be overwhelming thinking about all kinds of problems around the world that can affect global health," Tutar says. "But I saw big groups of people at this conference organizing and coming together to find creative solutions to these problems."

For future summits and educational experiences, Martinez envisions expanding the program to include even more UCF students and welcome Maltese students.

"Our vision is for this initiative to grow into a platform that catalyzes collaborative research, advances population health and drives innovative solutions to pressing health challenges," he says.

All medical students interested in being a part of the next cohort of international students are invited to attend an informational meeting on global health exchange programs at 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 7, in COM 116. Students may register here.

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