Q&A with Jenny Hu
Learn about Jenny's experience in the MSc in Global Health Program at McMaster University, plus her work experience with Evidence Aid!
Welcome to the Invite Health newsletter. These newsletters will contain a roundup of student opportunities related to Canadian healthcare, including jobs, organizations, events, and more! We also highlight and interview students making an impact in Canadian healthcare. 💌
This week, meet Jenny Hu! 📬
In this newsletter, I reached out to Jenny Hu, to ask about her experience as a student in the Master’s of Science in Global Health program at McMaster University, plus her work experience with Evidence Aid. Read through our discussion here, to learn about the impactful work that she did!
This newsletter is transcribed from a Zoom call that Jenny & I had. Our discussion was quite informative, so enjoy reading it all!
Q&A with Jenny Hu, MSc in Global Health Student at McMaster University + Intern at Evidence Aid 🌐
First off, tell us about yourself! What inspired you to enter your current field of study, where do you go to school, and what are your aspirations? What else do you like to do outside of studying?
My name is Jenny (she/her), and I just finished my Masters of Science (MSc) in Global Health at McMaster University. I didn’t have a very direct path that inspired me to enter this field. I know some people are super inspired in their career path (ex: some people say “I love working with kids”, and then go on to pursue a career related to working with kids), but I didn’t have a path like that in mind. I did a lot of debate in high school which centered around international relations, and I did an undergrad in the health sciences so I thought why not bridge the two to further my understanding of global disparities in health.
Some stand-out courses that helped me make the decision to study global health included “Sex, Gender, and Health” and “Perinatal and Reproductive Health”. I took both for fun and finished both courses with even greater interest in intersectionality. For “Sex, Gender, and Health”, so much of what I learned from the professor was about understanding how sex and gender are different issues within research. They both have unique impacts on the way health is researched, health is distributed, and help-seeking behaviours. It taught me the difference between biological and social influences on well-being while furthering my interest in reproductive health. In my 4th year, “Perinatal and Reproductive Health” was what cemented my interest in intersectional approaches to health.
When looking back on the assignments I submitted for both classes, I realized I included a lot of my lived experiences in them. I talked about being an immigrant in the Chinese diaspora and how that impacted the way my family and I interact with the healthcare system. This again, helped me understand why intersectionality is important and made me even more interested in health from an international viewpoint.
So, for my graduate studies, I wanted to study something that integrated my love for health, along with my interest in global issues and intersectionality. I thought global health would be a great way to bridge that. The field is all about how we promote well-being in a transnational setting, and how we collaborate to bridge disparities between higher-resource areas with lower-resource regions . In my application to the global health program, I actually talked about how I was interested in empowering local decision-makers in promoting well-being and addressing pressing issues within their own communities. This is not looking down on others, pitying them, and coming in with this savior complex. Rather, it’s about asking, how can we work together to learn and empower those who are marginalized?
I went into my masters with the mindset that this is an opportunity to learn more about myself, and to mature. It was the first time I approached education with the lens of I don’t know what I want to get out of it, but I’m interested to learn things that might open up certain passions or certain interests. And having this mindset definitely helped. I took some risks in taking courses that I knew were challenging, I wasn’t as GPA-focused, and was just focused on finding out what I like or didn’t like.
In the winter semester of the global health program, you get to do your elective stream. This means you get to choose a specific stream that you want to study. What’s really great about the global health program at McMaster is that it isn’t just one program- we are combined with 6 sister programs around the world. There’s schools in the Netherlands, Colombia, India, Thailand, Sudan, and Norway that all work together to support global collaboration between us graduate students.
I originally applied to learn in the equity stream, because health inequity is something I was already interested in: how race, gender, and sexuality intersect. But then, there was a presentation on the elective streams that we could do, and I changed my mind. I chose the stream called “Implementing Innovations”, taught by a sister school in the Netherlands. My parents didn’t want me to travel out of health concerns, so I actually did my exchange virtually. This elective stream was all about how we can implement and translate innovations from one place to another, especially during times of crises. I didn’t have any knowledge about it, and so I thought it would be an excellent learning experience.
Obviously there were some time zone issues, and I had to wake up before sunrise for morning lectures (which was in the afternoon for those in the Netherlands), but I learned so much about how health interventions are developed and tailored to address local issues. One thing I didn’t anticipate coming into this Masters is the course we call Foundations. It’s a class where you work on a project with students from different partner institutions to learn about developing health interventions. This transnational collaboration really allowed me to meet a variety of people who come from countries, cultures, religions, and languages. I think that was so amazing to have that hands-on experience. In undergrad, you might work with students from a different major, but you rarely get an opportunity to fully work in a transnational setting. So navigating different time zones, different religious holidays, and language barriers was a new challenge for me.
As for hobbies, I did competitive debate all throughout high school and undergrad. I started coaching debate when I started university and I really enjoy doing that- it keeps my critical thinking skills up, and motivates me to be somewhat well-versed in current issues. Does watching and binging shows count as hobbies too? I recently started Criminal Minds- it’s kinda scary and I also love Umbrella Academy. These are some shows that help me take my mind off the stress of studying.
What experience are you going to highlight in this newsletter?
Within the MSc Global Health program, you have to do a summer practicum. Obviously it’s a little stressful as you have to find the practicum opportunities yourself, but the program does a good job of helping you with that. They post about upcoming opportunities and previous practicum connections that they have on a rolling basis.
For my practicum, I worked with this organization based in the UK, called Evidence Aid. Evidence Aid is a NGO that summarizes complex systematic reviews into plain language across a variety of languages. We have 7 major collections with 1000+ summaries published to date. These collections address all types of health scenarios like natural disasters, COVID-19, Ebola outbreaks, building resilient health systems, and more. The summaries are meant to make research accessible to actual frontline workers and decision-makers within regions that are vulnerable to these health crises.
I remember reading a paper about user’s experiences with Evidence Aid. One of the quotes was that, oftentimes, abstracts and research can alienate frontline workers and local decision makers because it’s full of jargon and can be extremely long. It’s no secret that academic research is not widely accessible to the general public. You have to think, in a lot of global health settings around the world, these decision-makers and politicians are not researchers. They, along with most of the general public, might not be well-versed in accessing research. A lot of this information is kept behind a paywall and so, our summaries at Evidence Aid make it easy for them to access evidence-based protocols to make informed decisions about health crises: what to do after an earthquake, improving and supporting maternal health, preventing malnutrition in children, and more.
As an earthquake collections intern at Evidence Aid, I was part of a team of graduate students who screened systematic reviews and meta-analyses published within the last few years so as to keep our collection up-to-date. A large part of our work was writing the summaries in ways that were easy for any reader to understand and to extract actionables for readers to use. The experience taught me just how important it is to address barriers that limit the application of innovative knowledge and connected me with various researchers working to promote their work in real-life interventions.
Now, I’m working on a project where we support accessing protocols that promote research. The organization has been working with PAHO, WHO, and a host of other global organizations in empowering community-based research and decision-making all through making resources and instructions accessible.
This experience has helped me learn just how much goes behind the scenes, in terms of supporting people who directly interact with communities within global health. This doesn't mean that the research and the work we do is only for countries who are low resource and/or low income. This applies to any region, even those within Canada and the US that are generally underserved. For example, our summaries target those who are facing some sort of viral breakout within a marginalized community or a low resource area such as those in Northern Canada. That’s something that I never really considered before: understanding how there is this barrier between academia and the people who need/apply this knowledge. This was so interesting and truly eye-opening for me.
I highly recommend all of you to check out Evidence Aid! A lot of the work is done by our project teams, board of trustees, and our amazing core team. On top of that, we also have lots of interns from the UK, the States, Canada, India and more- all working remotely to help support the organization. If you’re curious to learn more, we have a website where you can read all the collections for free! They’re great to look through if you don’t want to read a full systematic review, and just want to get to the nitty gritty and the actionable items.
How did you come across this opportunity?
For the MSc in Global Health Program:
I heard about it through other health science students in my undergrad program - checked out the website, read about it, and then I just applied.
I’m sure a lot of students can relate to this, but when you are in high school applying to university, it can be so overwhelming because there are just so many programs and universities to choose from. You don’t know which one offers something unique, and you don’t know which one might be the best fit for you. And, that’s the same thing with anyone applying to a Master’s program. When my friends and I were applying, we were so confused about where to apply. The McMaster program was the only one (global health related master’s program) I applied to, because I wasn't aware of global health opportunities elsewhere.
If you are lucky enough to apply to multiple programs (because applying to graduate schools isn’t cheap either), I would advise you to reach out to people who have graduated from your program of interest. That’s something I didn’t do, but wish I did. Don’t be afraid to reach out! People are really open to offering advice and hearing what your questions are. On LinkedIn, you can find our McMaster alumni by searching up the program. I’ve actually had students reach out to me! They’re now currently in the global health program and we chat about navigating electives, coursework, and a bit of tea. So if you’re not sure about the McMaster MSc Global Health program, message us! Our alumni are really amazing- they’re happy to answer any questions and tell you about their experiences with the program.
For Evidence Aid:
In the global health program, you do have to find your own practicum which can be stressful at first, but the staff post lots of openings and opportunities on our learning dashboard (Avenue) which was a great help. That’s actually how I heard about Evidence Aid.
Once I landed the practicum, I found my supervisor who was really awesome and flexible which was a huge help throughout the pandemic. They were very understanding and pushed me to step outside of my comfort zone in order to learn and grow as an intern. Overall, they were just happy that people were interested in the field and the work that they do.
If you’re currently in the program and aren’t sure where to start looking for a practicum, don’t be afraid to reach out to an organization and just ask, “I’m really interested in this work you do, how can I support it and get to know more about the role your organization plays in this field?”. It’s like cold emailing- you might not get any responses, but sometimes you will get a response, and it can really open doors for you. Some of my classmates’ practicum opportunities originally started out with someone randomly emailing someone else. At times, you have to be comfortable with reaching out, and it’s something I continue to struggle with. However, if you’re already comfortable with that, or are working towards that, keep going at it! Oftentimes, organizations are not going to be super public about intern openings, so cold email!
What were some of the most notable highlights that you had from the experience?
From the MSc in Global Health experience, the most notable highlight was definitely working in a transnational setting. I never got that in my undergrad or in any of my extracurriculars.
Within Global Health, it’s not just students who recently finished their bachelor’s. Many of my peers were people who already had professional degrees: nurses, OTs, researchers, etc. When we worked in the transnational setting, and for me it was working with Dutch and Indian students, you realize their student body also looks very different from yours. In my Foundations group (one of my classes), it was half McMaster and half Manipal students from India. We had one student that came out of undergrad, one doctor, and one dentist. We all came from such different backgrounds, and I started to recognize the biases and the privilege I had. That made me more cognizant about how to be open in navigating difficult conversations with my group. For example, I definitely lacked work experience and maturity compared to them, so I had to learn to ask for help and create learning opportunities for myself. This wasn’t unilateral though, everyone had so much to learn from one another and in a lot of ways we complemented each others’ skill set.
That was really amazing to see, and it’s an experience that I don’t think I could’ve gotten elsewhere. It also prepared me really well for the practicum, because I was much more aware of how to set group norms, communicating and bringing up issues of cultural differences and cultural work differences. What are your strengths and what areas you would like more support in? How would you prefer we address problems? How would you like to navigate asynchronous communication with time zone differences? These things also impacted my work in Evidence Aid. I learned a lot, made mistakes, was very happy with certain outcomes, and it was a great experience overall. If you are interested in global health or working with people from different walks of life, then the McMaster program is one to consider.
With Evidence Aid, I would say that the most notable highlight was my experience of becoming more confident with research. Even though I wasn’t doing lab work or academic research, I still had to draft up a systematic search, go through screening processes, and test the rigor of the studies. I learned these skills in my undergraduate classes, but I never really felt comfortable with it. So, this gave me an opportunity where I can practice these skills without feeling like my grade depended on it.
I was also impressed by the fact that we worked with so many big organizations. That was eye-opening and it really goes to show that large organizations like PAHO and WHO work with a lot of NGOs to support their goals and accomplishments. And sometimes, these NGOs don’t get the shoutout and credit they deserve.
Did this experience lead you to pursue any other related opportunities?
With the global health program, it is a 12 month intensive program. I just finished all of my degree requirements in August, and right now, I decided to kind of “take a year off”. The program itself did lead me to Evidence Aid and I am continuing my internship with them. Now, I’m working more towards the editorial and project management side of things. I support some of the key projects we have going on, like the Building Resilient Health Systems and the WHO project team.
The reason I chose to extend my internship was because I wanted to gain more insight into what research looks like in global health, and what it means to work in global health. A lot of the times when people think of the words “global health”, they think about Doctors Without Borders//Médecins Sans Frontières, going to a low resource country and helping ill patients. But that doesn’t really illustrate the depth of what global health is. It’s part of it, but the field is also about promoting and empowering local communities. It can mean providing research, protocols, and skills to empower and learn from local stakeholders.
I’m still currently exploring where I want to situate myself within global health. I’m also still coaching debate, because that’s just something I love, and it keeps me in the loop with social justice and issues around the world. I don’t know where it will take me, but the degree definitely made me more interested in global health and have more respect for the field. So, I guess it’s a “to be continued”!
Where can students go if they want to learn more about this program?
Evidence Aid: evidenceaid.org
Jenny Hu on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jenny-xinye-hu/
MSc in Global Health at McMaster University: globalhealth.mcmaster.ca/programs/master-of-science-in-global-health/program-overview/
As someone who didn’t have a lot of connections, any older siblings, or mentors coming into this program, I really wish I had an upper year to talk to. So, if anyone is in that same boat: you feel lost, you’re a first generation immigrant and your parents can’t really offer too much help on applying to grad or undergrad programs, I would be happy to help. I can answer questions, provide guidance, and link you with other people who are in programs you are interested in. My door is always open. Just add me and then shoot me a message! If you add me and don’t shoot me a message, then I don't know how I can help you - so please reach out!
LOL so I made this vlog last year about my first week of MSc. It’s more of a personal vlog and at most I discuss the transition from undergrad to grad school. It’s not super academically focused, but here it is if you’re interested:
Is there anything else that you would like to add for Invite Health readers?
The first thing I would add is that the MSc in Global Health program has some cool travel opportunities. Every year, in April, we get to go to a symposium in India where all the international partner schools meet up! You get to meet your teammates that you’ve been working with virtually, learn about other cultures, and participate in the symposium where you pitch your idea for the scholarly paper (that is required for our degree). In my year, it was hosted virtually so we didn’t get the full experience, but it was still so amazing to hear about the research we were all doing. My presentation was on IUD use and family planning in China, but there were a host of other topics! There was one that stood out which I believe was on the experience of maternal health for black mothers. Another did research on LGBTQ+ conversion therapy policies within Canada.
The second thing I will say is to explore. If you’re in a program where everyone is striving for the same career path (ex: medicine, dentistry, engineering, etc.), don’t be afraid to explore and step outside of the comfort zone. In 10-20 years, you might have different friends. You might look back and wish that you didn’t hold back on opportunities just because none of your friends wanted to explore them with you. That’s something I had to navigate - choosing an elective stream in my Masters that my best friend wasn’t doing. I felt really alone at first; but, everyone makes new friends. In the worst case scenario with exploring new things is that you won’t like what you’ve tried. But now you know what you don’t like, and you can eliminate some options for your career path.
Finally, this is a general rule just for me, but keep up with social issues! That’s something my undergrad prompted us to do and I am very grateful for. We spent a lot of time talking about the social determinants of health (SDoH) and had so many electives to learn about them. For example, I took a course called “Madness, Badness, Sadness” where we discussed the industrial prison complex and how it uniquely impacts well-being. I really enjoyed it and it was an amazing course to learn about important issues relevant to Canadians. Being socially aware is something that not all grad students are prepared for so if you’re someone who is interested in intersectionality, you’re already one foot up from others. It also makes you a more well-rounded person and helps when you’re writing essays and contributing to presentations/discussions. You’ll be able to offer more nuanced perspectives and link ideas to real-life situations.
Furthermore, keeping up with social issues doesn’t necessarily mean reading the news. You can watch YouTube videos about it! I like watching John Oliver because it’s humorous, and Seth Meyers is someone I sometimes watch too. Whatever avenue you use, make it good for you. I know some people who hate reading the news, so they would rather go to TikTok- go with whatever works for you.
About Invite Health 💌
Invite Health is on a mission is to invite students to learn and participate in Canadian healthcare.
We write newsletters that feature a roundup of student opportunities (jobs, events, organizations, etc.) related to Canadian healthcare. We also interview students making an impact in Canadian healthcare.
More exciting things are coming soon, so stay tuned! 👀
How you can support Invite Health 🤝
Subscribe to our newsletter
Share Invite Health with your friends
Send any student opportunities (jobs, events, organizations, etc.) related to Canadian healthcare to Sachi, for a chance to be featured in the newsletter
Suggest any feedback on how we can improve Invite Health by contacting us on any of our social media platforms