Graduating during a pandemic, UTM student focuses future on global health
As the world continues to grapple with a global pandemic, one UTM graduating student’s commitment to health care has only been reinforced as she prepares to focus on global health.
Emily Sullo, who will graduate on June 2 with a major in psychology and a double minor in anthropology and biology, will be joining Western University’s Master of Global Health program in the fall, a program that now seems more relevant than ever.
“This is the biggest pandemic since the Spanish flu,” Sullo says, noting she and many others took a lot for granted when news of the virus was first reported, not expecting it to spread as it did.
Sullo expects the COVID-19 crisis will play a significant role in the global health program, especially since the focus is on low- and middle-income countries that don’t have the same resources to manage a pandemic.
“It is hard for them to bounce back,” Sullo says, noting even when there is a vaccine, it won’t necessarily be readily available within those countries.
The pandemic has put into sharp focus the need for a global approach to health built on understanding and collaboration. Sullo has already started to try to develop a better awareness of different needs, challenges and ways of managing health across the globe.
After her first year at UTM, she travelled to Ecuador to help build a classroom. While there, she got a first-hand look at local health care and education. She credits that trip for “kickstarting” her interest in global health. Later, she learned more about community health during a trip to Kenya, where she saw what she calls a real community approach to caring. The focus was on the patient, she says, and people took care of one another.
Witnessing different approaches to health care was important for Sullo, who notes it’s critical to understand the local dynamics because practices that work in Canada may not work elsewhere.
“The trip opened my eyes to that,” she says.
Sullo has spent much of her time at UTM finding ways to help others and developing an international mindset. She was the president of the UTM chapter of Free the Children and she worked with the International Education Centre for three years, first as an outreach assistant and later as an international program team lead. This school year, she and her close friend, Chelsea Buckley, founded Mental Health is Better Together Movement. The club, which is being passed to a new executive team, provides an open platform for discussion and peer support.
After her experiences locally and abroad, coupled with what she has seen with the ongoing pandemic, Sullo is looking to continue to find ways to both learn from and support other communities and countries, noting this most recent crisis has demonstrated the importance of global relationships.
On June 2, Sullo plans to join her extended family on a Zoom call to watch U of T’s virtual convocation together. She explains they’ve been supportive of her studies and it is a way to celebrate together. “Family is big in my life,” she says.