Nurses: A Force for Change: Improving Health Systems’ Resilience

October 14 -15 2016

Join Seed Global Health, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Global Nursing Caucus in Boston on October 14th and 15th for Nurses: A force for change: Improving health systems’ resilience. 
The conference will bring together nurse leaders, clinicians and educators from around the globe to discuss the critical role of nursing in the strengthening of health systems.
With support from Johnson & Johnson, we are excited to provide scholarships and funding for thirty students and four international speakers to attend the conference.
The overall objectives of the global nursing conference are to:
        Demonstrate nurses contribution and leadership to strengthening health systems globally.
Provide opportunities for nurses and other health colleagues to share best practices and core competencies for global health and inter-professional education and practice.
Create a dynamic forum and networking opportunity for nurses to discuss global health issues and health systems strengthening.
Unfortunately, we have reached the maximum number of in person registrations and are now only accepting registrations from those who are presenting at the conference. If you are a presenter, please contact globalhealth.conf@seedglobalhealth.org to register. We apologize for the inconvenience.
If you are joining remotely, please look at the Conference Agenda below for instructions on how to join. 
Conference Schedule
Focused on providing opportunities for active participation, networking, sharing, and learning
October 14, 2016
  • Pre Conference Workshop (beginning at 2:30): Health System Resilience & Ebola with Paige Crowles and Debbie Wilson
  • Opening Remarks & Welcome (beginning at 4:30): Dr. Vanessa Kerry and Dr. Eileen Stuart-Shor
Title: The Human Face of Health Systems Strengthening; Building capacity one student, one nurse and one patient at a time.
  • Keynote Address (beginning at 5:15): from Ann Kurth
Title: “Planetary health – What is the role of nursing?”
  • Social Hour with networking and opening of silent auction (beginning at 5:00pm)
October 15, 2016 
  • Morning session (beginning at 8:40 am): Welcome Remarks from Pauline Mella 
  • Panel Session 1 (beginning at 9:10 am – 10:30 am)
Title: Essential Core Competencies for Global Health
  • Break out sessions
Includes: Lightning Talks and oral abstract presentations
  • Panel Session 2 (beginning at 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm)
Title: Inter-professional Education and Practice for Improving Patient and Population-Health Outcomes
  • Closing (beginning at 3:30): Remarks from Pat Daoust, Monica Onyango, and Nancy White-Street
Conference Materials
Detailed Conference Agenda
List of Oral Abstract Presentations & Posters
Speaker Bios
Guest Speakers

Vanessa Kerry is a physician and the co-founder and CEO of Seed Global Health (formerly Global Health Service Corps). Having worked in resource-limited settings for over a decade, she has witnessed health inequities in many places in the world and how shortages of indigenous providers in their home countries contribute to those inequities. She envisions a solution where the growing number of US health professionals interested in global health serve as educators and faculty in these countries to build a pipeline of in-country providers. The innovative program gains efficiencies through a public private partnership between Seed Global Health, the Peace Corps and the countries where the volunteers serve. Concurrent with her role as CEO of Seed Global Health, Dr. Kerry is a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and helps lead educational activities at the hospital’s Center for Global Health. Academically, she spearheads the program in Global Public Policy and Social Change in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Her work has included the grassroots effort which led to the creation of Seed Global Health, and policy initiatives in Rwanda, as well as looking at novel ways for U.S. foreign assistance to fund health efforts, which improve efficiency of aid delivery, develop capacity, and enhance national sovereignty. In 2013, Dr. Kerry was named a Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation Social Entrepreneur, recognizing innovation in setting a standard of excellence. . Prominent publications include “An International Service Corps for Health: A New Prescription for Diplomacy” in the New England Journal of Medicine and “…One for Doctors Too,” a New York Times opinion piece published in 2010. She graduated from Yale University summa cum laude and Harvard Medical School cum laude, completing her Internal Medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital. She earned her Master’s in Health Policy, Planning, and Financing from the London Schools of Economics and of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Dr. Ann Kurth is Dean at the Yale University School of Nursing. She is adjunct professor of nursing and public health at New York University (NYU). At NYU, Dr. Kurth was associate dean for research at the College of Global Public Health, professor of medicine in the Department of Population Health, and executive director of NYU College of Nursing’s Global program.

As an epidemiologist and certified nurse-midwife, Dr. Kurth focuses on HIV, sexual and reproductive health prevention, screening and care, as well as on global health system strengthening, using information and communication technologies among other approaches for health intervention implementation and workforce training.

Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIAID, NIDA, NIMH, NICHD), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, UNAIDS, CDC, HRSA, and others, for studies conducted in the US and internationally. Dr. Kurth has consulted for the NIH, Gates Foundation, World Health Organization, and CDC. She received the FNINR Ada Sue Hinshaw Research Award in 2015.

Dr. Kurth has published more than 145 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and scholarly monographs, including editing one of the first books published on women and HIV (Until the Cure, Yale University Press 1993).

Dr. Kurth is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly Institute of Medicine), and a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and of the New York Academy of Medicine. She serves as a member of the 2014-2018 U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Dr. Kurth is incoming Vice Chair of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health.

Professor Mella, former and founding Dean of the Faculty of Nursing at Hubert Kairuki Memorial University, is a pioneer of Bachelor of Science in Nursing Education in Tanzania. It was Professor Mella’s dedication to nursing profession that led to the development of a Tanzanian curriculum for teaching Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing in Tanzania. She started working on a programme of teaching BSc Nursing in 1983, when she was employed at the Muhimbili University College of Health Sciences (MUCHS), but encountered several hurdles, before the Government agreed to welcome aboard her idea in 1989. The first intake of BScN students was in 1990. Professor Mella is the author of many publications, and has been the recipient of numerous awards. In 2002 she became the first African to win the Taylor and Francis Lectureship Award in South Korea. The award was given to an outstanding woman, who made significant contribution in her own country in relation to women’s health as well as in her chosen professional. Currently, Professor Mella, although retired, consults and lectures on Paediatric Nursing, Ethics and Legal Issues in Nursing, Reproductive and Child Health, Community Health Nursing, Leadership Management and Trends and Issues in Nursing and Health Care Systems, at the Faculty of Nursing as well teaching Information Management in Nursing to the Diploma and Certificate students at the Mikocheni School of Nursing.
  • Lynda  Wilson
  • Jason Farley
  • Joia Mukherjee
  • Barbara Astle
  • Marc Demoya
  • Billy Rosa
  • Peter Johnson
  • Carole Orchard
Massachusetts General Hospital
Richard B. Simches Research Center
Boston, MA
Directions and parking 
Information on visiting Boston
List of nearby hotels