Stanford - ABC News Fellowship in Media and Global Health

About the Fellowship 

In 2011, Stanford University’s Center for Innovation in Global Health (CIGH) launched the first U.S. Fellowship in Media and Global Health to demonstrate how multiple media platforms can have significant impact on global health work. Fellows are competitively chosen from a national pool of physicians-in-training and physicians committed to a career in global health. The Fellow learns how multiple media modalities can play a significant role in health and human rights efforts, foundation and government health assistance, and individual health choices.

This opportunity is targeted to provide medical students, residents, fellows and/or clinical faculty with 12-months of practical training in global health reporting using a variety of media platforms including print, television, social networking with fundamentals in journalism and communications.

One fellow is selected each year to complete a 12-month fellowship with leading media organizations. The Fellow will begin his/her year of training at the World Health Organization’s South East Asia Regional Office in New Delhi, followed by a quarter of training and mentorship through the Stanford University Graduate Program in Journalism.

Following the fall quarter of study at Stanford, the Fellow will spend six months embedded at ABC News in New York City working under the direction of Richard Besser, MD, Chief Health and Medical Editor of ABC News. Prior to 2016,  the fellowship included a 6-month rotation at NBC News under the direction of Nancy Snyderman, MD.

During the fellowship, the Fellow will be mentored by Dick Thompson, Senior Editor for the Journal for Health Affairs, Paul Costello, Chief of Communication and Public Affairs for Stanford, James T. Hamilton, Hearst Professor of Communication and Director of the Stanford Journalism Program, and Michele Barry, MD, Senior Associate Dean for Global Health at Stanford School of Medicine.

The Fellowship aims to teach the chosen fellow:

• How journalists and TV medical correspondents select topics, stories, and issues in the field of global health;
• Techniques to persuasively present and write about science;
• How to access new channels and technologies for persuasive communication, including best practices of social networking.

Upon completion of the fellowship, the Fellow will be required to produce a publication on an in-depth topic of choice in global health.

The Fellow will return to medical training with the expectation that in addition to treating patients, conducting research or teaching, s/he will also become an advocate and spokesperson for global health issues.