My intro malaria/tropical medicine course at Colby College… is done!

A friend of mine hooked me up with a short gig teaching a course in malaria and tropical medicine for Colby College’s JanPlan. Every January, students have the opportunity to study a subject in depth, often with teaching faculty not based at Colby College.

I have long wanted to design an undergrad level course in tropical medicine so took it as an opportunity to do so. We focused mostly on malaria, covering the basics of malaria epidemiology, pathogen and vector biology, prevention and treatment, diagnostics, vector control, health care delivery, international funding for malaria programs, drug and insecticide resistance and elimination/eradication. We even had lectures on basic concepts of epidemiology and infectious disease and talked at length about public health, public health practice and medical ethics. It has been a fairly intense month.

At first, I was a bit concerned that the subject matter would be too broad, particularly for science people, but quickly learned that much of the class were non-science majors, and most were freshmen.  This gave me a great opportunity to bring in a wide range of topics that could appeal to just about everyone in the class.