Senior Care Academy
Senior Care Academy is a podcast dedicated to providing valuable information and expert advice on navigating the world of senior care for both senior care providers, and families with aging parents. Hosted by industry professionals, each episode covers a wide range of topics including healthcare options, legal considerations, financial planning, and emotional support for caregivers. If you are a healthcare provider, have aging parents, or are a senior adult, this podcast is for you! Tune in to gain valuable insights and resources to help you make informed decisions and provide the best care for your loved ones.
Senior Care Academy
Bridging Cultures and Continents: Maged Iskarous's Odyssey in Global Public Health
Navigating the complex landscape of global health requires not only expertise but also the insights of those who've walked the path from local origins to international influence. Maged, an Egyptian-American luminary in public health policy, joins us to share his transformative journey from a pharmacy graduate in Cairo to a key player in worldwide health initiatives. His vibrant heritage and professional metamorphosis underscore the critical role of cultural understanding and community engagement in crafting healthcare systems that truly make a difference.
Our conversation with Maged illuminates the often-overlooked importance of clear public health messaging and the empowering ripple effect of health literacy. We grapple with the challenges of harmonizing healthcare expenditure with tangible outcomes, a dilemma faced by OECD nations and beyond. Maged's role at FHI 360 brings into focus the delicate balance between global health directives and the indispensable value of localized, culturally-sensitive policies—offering a candid look at the interplay of education, public health, and societal advancement.
Wrapping up the dialogue, we confront the daunting global challenges that impinge on our collective well-being, from the confidentiality conundrums in data sharing to the promise of AI and telemedicine in closing health disparity gaps. Maged's perspective on the broader implications of our localized actions, particularly in the battle against climate change, serves as a poignant reminder of our shared responsibility in fostering a healthier, more equitable planet. Join us for an inspiring session that bridges continents and communities, reminding us that the health of one is indeed intertwined with the health of all.
Today we have Magid on the Senior Care Academy. Magid is a seasoned global public health policy expert with a robust background in policy analysis, advocacy and strengthening health systems, with a dynamic career that spans multiple sectors and global regions. Magid specializes in developing strategic programs aimed at enhancing public health infrastructure and governance, and he's currently involved in directing complex multi-sectoral public health initiatives, particularly enhancing healthcare delivery systems in Egypt. It's awesome to have you on, Magid. First is where did you grow up and how do you feel like that affected who you became and led you to ultimately getting into healthcare.
Speaker 2:It's a long story, but I'm born Egyptian. I belong to a minority, a religious minority in Egypt. Even as a Christian, I'm a Protestant Christian, even the minority of the minorities. So, yes, but I really liked that because I got exposed to the different cultures, have friends from all over, and not just in Egypt but in other parts. I went to a French Catholic school, so this is where I got my French skills from, and then my education, and then Not where you got your Protestant, I imagine no, it's Catholic.
Speaker 2:So it's all mixed. So like I mean this is nice. Some people think that in Egypt, like people are polarized, there is discrimination. It's not like what the media wants to put it. No, it's very well tolerating, like expats or foreigners and other peoples with different faith. And this is very nice about where we live, where we grew up. It's a long civilization, even if sometimes you see, like the bad side, like the economy, the trouble, the middle east, the war and all of this going on, still it's, I mean, rich, it's welcoming, it's very diverse. A lot of civilizations like passed by egypt, colonized Egypt for some time and this influenced the culture. So this is where I grew up actually.
Speaker 2:And then I did my secondary, like education, in the British one. So again, another exposure to like the Brits way of thinking, and that's another one. I got my college degree from Cairo University, graduated as a pharmacist and trained as a pharmacist for some time. And then I moved. I got my MBA from Maastricht School of Management in the Netherlands community pharmacy field in like big pharma in the country in training and development for some time. And then, right after the uprising, I moved to California, to the States. This is where I got my license to practice pharmacy.
Speaker 2:So I practiced pharmacy for some time in the States and then I decided, ok, where should I go in my career With all of this diverse background. So I chose public health. I got my degree from George Washington University in DC and I made this change in careers. I decided to take everything with me in this new journey of public health and, specifically, I'm interested in policies and systems and systems thinking and strengthening the system, and this has to go hand by hand with, like, community engagement. You cannot just like strengthen the system, the technical part, and lose the people, so you need to do both, and this is where I am now.
Speaker 1:So what initially drew you into the field of public health? Going from pharmacy to where you are today? It's kind of a jump from working at a local Walgreens or something I guess in California, to what your job is now.
Speaker 2:I felt like I cannot just keep doing the same job, the same routine job, standard job every day. I needed to try different things to influence the community where I am and to do that at a global level with, like, my exposure to different cultures, with my being, like I mean Egyptian American, so I can like move around easily in different parts of the world. I needed to capitalize on that. I like the German speaking region, like the German culture that's another thing, that's even my favorite one. So the culture, how people think, values, so this exposure made me think, okay, I cannot just live in one place, let's say in California, and do a standard job as a staff pharmacist.
Speaker 2:It's great and it's comfortable and it's high paying and everything's fancy. Everybody would like look at me, okay. So now we have like someone who's come from Egypt and you're doing this job, so you must be very well paid and happy. So this is not the life I like. I prefer like doing things with a stronger impact on the community. Yeah, I wouldn't leave behind all of this. I mean richness.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, there's a lot of different motivators out there for people. Some it's money and, like you said, you kind of had that but you weren't having the global impact that you'd hoped to have. And so finding something in public health where you can affect the policies and affect the changes that are going to affect thousands or hundreds of thousands of lives, of thousands of lives and it didn't take me like much time to decide.
Speaker 2:I had it already in mind. So I felt like it didn't take me time to apply. I just chose one or two programs and just applied and whatever I got accepted, I just took it. I kept going on.
Speaker 1:And you mentioned pharmacy. There was a little bit of a monotony to it where it was like the same thing every day. So now that you are the senior technical officer at fhi, what does a typical day look like for you?
Speaker 2:I'm sure there's a lot more diversity of action it's actually the epic project, which is like a big project led by fhi 360. So I work under the epic project and what we do is that we make sure that this global project, with its like I mean broad interventions, like in systems and health systems, strengthening and community engagement as well, like I mean accepted in the country.
Speaker 1:And that's specifically for Egypt, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I work for the Egypt team. So there are like teams in other developing countries, the US government, money that is like given out to the global community just to make sure that there is a stronger response to pandemics, to COVID and then to pandemics, because this is important and this is a key point that not everybody is aware of. If you don't work on the global level, you cannot avoid the threat locally, even if you're protected. You think you're protected. It's the mainland. We can do everything, we can manage everything ourselves, but it comes from abroad, so you need to support other countries. What we do is that we work with policymakers I mean the government, the public and even the private sector, the civil society just to make sure that the way we support them is locally driven, that everything that we do is suitable to their needs, their actual needs.
Speaker 1:Everything that we do is suitable to their needs, their actual needs. Yeah, since you have insight into the world's health, rather than just for me. I'm in the US, the US health. I kind of know those trends, but what would you say is the most pressing public health issue across the globe right now that you're trying to address?
Speaker 2:First of all, I wouldn't think of it as local, which is US, and then global, because even this terminology is a bit questionable. It's one global health, including the US. So you cannot just think of developed and developing, the high-income countries and the low and middle-income countries. This classification is tricky because when it comes to infectious diseases, you cannot stop them. The borders wouldn't stop them. Yeah, borders don't do that, they are in the air. So it's all over. And we can see what's going on now in the US, like with the avian flu cases. So it's scary a bit. So it's not infectious, it's not non-communicable diseases, it's nothing but the lack of empowerment of communities.
Speaker 1:What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2:It has to come from education. It's health literacy. You need to educate people, not just to make them experts in science or in medicine. This is not it. No, to make them aware of the risks, aware of the room, aware of how to interpret what is being thrown out to them by scientists. There is a big disconnect or gap between what scientists say and the public and the community, and it's alike in the US or globally. All over, people think that, okay, there must be something, there is a hidden agenda. Sometimes there is, but it's not all the time. So they're forcing us, imposing on us some measures that should not be there and because people don't spend enough time to understand how public health experts they're engulfed in all of the terminology that they use every day.
Speaker 1:So when they write an article with all this terminology, for them it's second grade literature, but for the common man or woman it's confusing and they don't actually know what they're trying to say.
Speaker 2:Yes, I agree with you Exactly. Sometimes we cannot help it. We're talking to each other and we assume that people understand what we're saying. It's not like that.
Speaker 2:People even don't understand the measures, when to enforce those measures, like the decisions of the CDC, the decisions of whoever is ruling, or in charge of the policy A lot of experts are criticizing those decisions, because it is not the decision by itself, but the way it is communicated to the public and the way it is taken up by the public.
Speaker 2:So this is the real challenge, and it's not just in global health and public health, let's call it whatever we call it. No, it's in everything. It's in economic development, like theories and measures and policies. So it's health, it's in development, it's in the economy, it's in education, and you cannot just assume that, okay, we are the biggest economy, we have everything, so we're doing great and what we're doing now is the best of no, no, no, it's not. Let's let's just like, take a quick look at the OECD countries and then check the expenditure in health or in healthcare versus the outcomes, and you'll be shocked that even though you're spending the highest in terms of monetary figures, you're not getting an equivalent outcome in terms of health. So there must be something wrong that needs to be fixed, I mean locally and globally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so is there a specific or particular public health intervention that you were able to be involved with affecting the policies to try to bridge that gap between the monetary spend and the outcomes that were achieved?
Speaker 2:Of course, there are many, many ways of doing it, and you cannot just say that there is one way of doing it, because it depends on whoever you're working with. So the number one intervention, the gold standard, would be community engagement. I know that we were prepared to discuss community engagement.
Speaker 1:Community engagement, things like community sports or parks or activities that get, or even religious, that bring people together.
Speaker 2:Is that what you mean by community engagement Of course, these are ways of engaging the public in whatever policy you're trying to ask them about. It's deeper and broader than this. It's empowering them enough so that they would come up with, first, problem definitions and solutions to those problems and solutions. And this includes, like, the way to do them, the way to apply them, to implement them, and ownership. So because if they feel that things are imposed on them, of course all of us, all over the world we saw this with COVID like happening. People were resisting. We cannot accept this. We don't understand why you're doing this.
Speaker 1:These are all profits from the big pharma.
Speaker 2:You're forcing us to get vaccinated. All of this and, of course, some politicians were wrong about not explaining enough to the public the risks of those measures, the side effects of the vaccines, and what if we do nothing, the cost of inaction, if we just let it happen, and all of those challenging models, mathematical models that needed to be communicated to the public to understand. In a public health crisis, you need to go and get vaccinated, even if there is a low risk of side effects, but not doing so will expose all of us to way higher risks. That's an example, of course. So the one thing that needs to be done is decolonizing international development and global health, and this is an important term.
Speaker 2:The USAID they use the term localization, so they try to make sure that the money goes to local actors, that more than half, or even more than half the money goes to local actors, so that whatever is done is suitable to the context. And you'd be surprised at the end that a lot of what is being done here and there is actually the same A few tweaks. You're using different languages, the culture, sensitivity, things that you cannot do in one country can do in other countries. And this brings us to another important related topic the cultural sensitivity, the respecting people's ideology background in terms of faith, if you talk all the time to those who you assume share with you the same faith or ideology and I'm not just talking about religious faith, like I mean values or whatever- Principles, whatever you live by, if you just like.
Speaker 2:talk to them and ignore the others, thinking that what they're saying is not correct and is not acceptable. You're just offending them to the point of getting them to resist the change, to oppose you, and this is what triggers even worse.
Speaker 1:It's not just at the level of yeah, it's not just like it really is true.
Speaker 1:The more that you engage with people that have different religious or political or ideological or any of those things, and you find the commonalities rather than the differences because there's always going to be commonalities Things are able to move forward better and it prevents a lot of catastrophic things, even, I think, like as small, as you're driving in traffic and somebody cuts you off and you're like really upset at that person because that was a difference that you guys had.
Speaker 1:If you sat down for lunch with that person that cut you off, I bet there'd be so much that you have in common and that you could build off of. And so doing that locally and then expanding up to globally. And that's kind of what you mentioned with the community engagement. Right, we have globally, health is all the same, but we need to find a way to take that down all the way down to the local level to be able to teach the local hospital or government what needs to happen hospital or government what needs to happen and then say to them this is the core, go and find the ways to make it so that way it applies to your standards or what you guys do there.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's not just sharing with them what needs to be done. Assuming that you know what needs to be done is by itself a problem. That's problematic because you don't know actually what needs to be done. You can tell them and this is in research you can tell them okay, this worked here, or we think that this worked here, that this was associated with this success, related, correlated to this success, even in science. You cannot just assume that things are that simple. So when it comes to social policies, it's very, very, very complicated. So, building on what you've just said, that we know what needs to be done, actually we don't know exactly what needs to be done. We probably know where we want to go, or where we want to reach, or the point where we should be, the outcome, the desired outcome yeah, probably know that directionally correct.
Speaker 2:Yes, this is, we think we're going to go here and it may not be appropriate to them, like I mean, the way we like see it is different.
Speaker 2:Maybe this is not what they see appropriate to them. So we may tell them, okay, we may, may share with them our experience in a different context, analyze it, and it's like even interpretation of even religious texts. People would just read the books, the religious books, like the doctrines, and think this means that Of course it doesn't. It means this to you now, your understanding of the issue, but you don't understand everything behind it. So you need to be humble, like know that, okay, we have some knowledge, we've done some research, we know that this has succeeded here, or probably succeeded, or probably this was behind the success. It could be something else. And here comes the systems thinking approach. Too many things are working at the same time and influencing the outcome, so we need to be aware of that. And this takes us to another important point the stereotyping and the way we see our diversity. So whenever you apply to a job, they would ask you about background and race ethnic background or whatever all of this.
Speaker 2:And this is where the bad thing starts happening, because the moment I feel like we're different and that you're just focused on our differences like we do now we talk. I have a different background, of course ethnic background. I'm born Egyptian and naturalized American, but I'm born Egyptian, so we don't share everything, and I got a different education. It's like the Catholics and French Okay, we make fun of them all the time, so okay. So I mean this is okay, and they make fun of Americans at the same time. And the cowboys, I mean the culture, a lot of things, yeah, are funny, but when it comes to those who are discriminated, they're not happy. Of course, you know about the health outcomes, the worst health outcomes related to race, the higher rate of like abortion, let's say like, yeah, a lot of things are happening because of the stress that some people get exposed to being with the diverse background. So, yeah, the moment we start thinking differently, instead of looking at our differences, we try to focus on our commonalities. You said earlier so, and understand that we're all partners in this, like big corporate. We all live in a world that we're all on. It's one earth, and I mean, if you have a problem, it will eventually affect my well-being Eventually, by one way or another.
Speaker 2:If you track it, you will see how it affected you. For instance, the war is at the borders of Egypt now, and in Egypt, I mean, people live peacefully. There is nothing, but it's affecting the economy. There is a lot of what's going on in the campuses in the US now. It's affecting education. It's affecting communities. Anything that happens somewhere affects people living away from it. We're in the 21st century. We know everything, we see everything happening live on our phones, so we don't need TVs. Even I was born in 1975, so I remember watching the Desert Storm War in Iraq on TV. That was on TV back then.
Speaker 2:Now I don't need to stay in front of the the TV screen to see things happening. I know in a minute I get the notification. So the diversity thing if we keep talking about diversity and how tolerating we are and how tolerating we should be, this means that we keep pointing to it. We should totally ignore it. We should totally abandon this way of thinking. And let's not forget that it's the diversity in the western culture I mean, has brought in a lot of richness. If the people coming from all over the world to the US, to the universities, the scientists, they did a great job helping those countries, like advance in science, their economies and even like people invading, like even colonizing the developing countries. Of course it wasn't good, but it brought in education, science and other good stuff with it. So we're mature enough now to abandon this way of thinking.
Speaker 1:Like you mentioned, I think, on the job applications. It has race and ethnicity and things like that, and when really they're applying because they identify and align with the missions and values of your company, and so it's like talk about that. How do you balance being directionally correct on a global scale with actual on the ground implementation of both the diversity and then the localized implementation of things that we think are going to improve health outcomes? How do you balance that? Because you work on a global scale, it's nice, I think, on the implementation side, to say do X, y and Z thing, but it sounds like that might not be possible. So how do you affect that?
Speaker 2:It's again engaging them, even if you're training healthcare providers, the guidelines and it's funny enough, you have treatment guidelines with medicines and tools that are not available locally, so you go to them and tell them OK you need to give them Paxlovid, because this is, I mean now, this is the best one, and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2:Of course they don't have it. Yeah, and nobody's giving them. And even the vaccines that treat those countries were donations, and instead of throwing them away because they were about to expire, those countries donated them to developing countries. So if you're using tools that they don't have and if you're imposing on them measures that they cannot adopt because they don't have strong systems, they don't have the right policies in place and you're telling them you should do it this way.
Speaker 2:Of course, this is a recipe for failure, and on paper we can tell them okay, you've done this and that. Great, we trained you on one, two, three, four. Now you're trained, god bless, you Go and do the job. Of course it doesn't work this way, so it has to come top down, from them to the bottom yeah, from bottom up yes instead of a top-down approach, it has to consider their environments, their capabilities, their capacities, the epidemiology in those developing countries.
Speaker 2:You don't have access to data. I remember studying in the in the us, like doing my master's program in public health. I would just drop a few lines to any of the counties in California and ask them for epidemiological data. An hour later I would receive everything and I would do like my assignment and I'm okay. I have the figures, I have the interventions, I can comment on them, propose solutions, other policies. It's a good exercise, but applying this at a global level, you don't have data. Nobody will give you the data because it's considered confidential. They may have it, it's national security. They don't want to show their vulnerabilities to other mega powers.
Speaker 1:How do you go about handling things like that on multinational teams and scale?
Speaker 2:First of all, who will train other care providers? It's always experts from the same community, so it's people who practice in the same places, in the same system and who are capable of adapting the global guidelines, the global science, to the local context. So it's the people we work with we empower. Second, you have to be flexible to the needs of the ones you serve. So if they tell you, okay, we're short of this and that you have to help them get this and that, yeah with this and that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Not just send them more of what they have access of.
Speaker 2:And sometimes there is another important point here the standard. You cannot just ask people to meet the high standards of quality. It took you like decades to get there and you want them to do it overnight. They cannot do it, they don't have the capacity. So sometimes you would frustrate them by asking them to meet standards that they cannot, for reasons everybody knows it's capacities, it's illiteracy, sometimes it's the brain drain. Of course you're aware of the physicians who are being headhunted from those countries, from Africa, from the developing countries, to the US and Europe. For instance, a lot of physicians, egyptian physicians. They went to practice in the UK Because they interviewed them and with no equivalency examinations they just hired them. So of course the pay is higher, everything, the standard of life is better. So in like five, ten years those developing countries would be suffering and you know what.
Speaker 2:Because, all the educated people, yeah, and if they start suffering the control of infectious diseases will suffer the burden on the global economy A lot of things. So it will cost the developed countries a lot to help those countries.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're taking the local people that know. Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 2:And it happened with vaccines and with technologies with COVID the rich countries would make sure that whoever is manufacturing those vaccines I mean, we have pre-ordered all of your production but we're talking about global health equity at the same time.
Speaker 1:Health equity if you decide to secure four or five doses per citizen in your country and leave behind yes, the vulnerable in other countries, people would say something and do the opposite I've never thought about that, like how, in the us again, a lot of our doctors and physicians are of different ethnicities and they came here and then in return, we're sending a lot of tax dollars and a support to these countries that they came from. Just have the. Maybe we support the doctors to stay there rather than to move over.
Speaker 2:That's a very interesting lemma, yeah, and let me add another point the vertically minded way of interventions. Let's work on infectious diseases, let's work on HIV, aids, malaria, yeah. So instead of strengthening the system, going across the system, going horizontal, you're doing it vertically and you're spending a lot. Instead of looking for synergies, you're wasting a lot of resources. What I'm going to say is really bad, because sometimes funders are happy that the recipients of their funds keep being dependent on them.
Speaker 2:And another bad thing to mention even the governments of those countries receiving those funds are happy and they're happy like receiving money and just doing nothing and not improving their economy, not improving their systems, to the point of being able to just like okay, yes, we're self-sufficient, we can do it on our own. They don't want to get there Someone who's begging all the time, and it's easier to beg than to do the hard work and do it yourself. So it's health diplomacy. So those funds are not used, sometimes for their declared impact. They are used to serve other interests, political interests. So all of this I mean broken system will keep us all suffering. Even if you live in the States, in the best cities, in the richest states, you cannot stop COVID, for instance, from reaching. It's a lesson that we should all learn.
Speaker 1:The system needs a lot of repairs and there's a lot of hard things I didn't know before having this conversation with you, so I appreciate that. Are there any things like looking forward maybe emerging trends in the health sector that you find promising to try to counterbalance any of the issues that are in the system?
Speaker 2:Sure, yes, the advance in technology, ai and telemedicine, all of this is, I mean, a golden opportunity for all of us to invest in. It could be supporting doctors in rural areas in Africa, like from where you are in the States, and, of course, over the past, past decade, we've heard a lot of stories about this and in some countries they have hubs where specialists can just support others or other like junior doctors or surgeons and other distant or rural areas. So this is one add to that, an opportunity to educate people through AI. And, of course, some people are very skeptic about AI and this is a threat and the ethics, new technology, and I mean the threats, the risks of AI. But we should instead invest in making it safe, making it effective, explaining or educating people on how to use AI in education so that the future generations, the young people now, are quite capable of utilizing those other technologies, for instance, the health technologies through AI or through whatever, telemedicine, telehealth. This will help leveling up those differences in development in terms of systems. If we want to do it, we can do it. I mean, if we want to invest the money in the right place, we have an opportunity to do that.
Speaker 2:Of course, some funders do that already and start developing the infrastructure and developing countries to make sure that they can accept these new technologies. A lot of startups work on that in health and in other social disciplines or domains. So this is the only thing that we have now available. It's technology, the advances that we have. Another thing is the sharing of technology. Another thing is the sharing of technology. Of course, the big pharma, any big lobby of manufacturers or industry. They don't want to share their technology and this is understandable because there has to be some return on investment.
Speaker 1:On whatever they start with, it's their moat against to keep their profits.
Speaker 2:Let's just be fair enough to say that a lot of this money came from governments. It's public money. So if you use public money to develop vaccines, mrna technology, for instance, and then you refuse to share the technology with other profits, yeah. So if you refuse to share the technology, if the next pandemic hits, we're going to go through the same cycle of not being able to control it, not being able to mitigate its risks and not being able to salvage a lot of people, populations all over the world, most pressing and hot topics it's using the aid money just properly to develop the right tools and technologies and share them with the developing countries.
Speaker 1:I think my biggest takeaways from today is that we have way more in common than differences, not only in our communities but around the world. To rely on those to enable localities to invest and develop and grow their health the way that it fits them, and to invest in technology that creates lasting impact, rather than a bunch of funds fixing one vertical, curing malaria, while all these other ones are just brewing in the background. If there was some advice that you could give to a young professional that's aspiring to work in the global public health, what would you tell that person?
Speaker 2:You'll be surprised that sometimes it's I need to hear them. Sometimes I mean the right advice would come from younger generations. So of course there is some wisdom. Of course it could be that you need to be resilient. You need to always think strategically. You need to think in systems, not just like focus on one thing that you're doing. You need to see the big picture. All of this is common wisdom, even one's personal reactions to what's going on around them. So if you get furious, if you're unable to cope with the stresses that you get exposed to at the workplace or other life stressors, if you don't master those skills, it will affect your professional career in any discipline, not just in public health, but in public health specifically. You need to always keep the big picture in mind. Any development or international development related discipline, global health and public health, I mean at the global scale. You need to understand the context, all the environment, what brought people to this point? So you need to study history.
Speaker 2:You need to study anthropology, you need to be very well open to ideas from all disciplines. It's not just science, it's social studies. It's not just science, it's social studies, it's humanities, it's not just your biomedical background. So if someone is interested in pursuing a career in this, in global health and global public health, they should be more of generalists than specialists. What I mean by generalist, I mean having the big picture all the time in mind and being open to ideas from here and there and and, of course, tolerating even the intolerant ones who would like to try to impose their ideas, because I cannot tell you that.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm very democratic and I would like listen to you, but what you're saying is wrong if I tell you that I'm open to other people's ideas and the minute you share your opinion, I tell you it's wrong, instead of I see it differently, I have another opinion. Let's focus on what's common instead of thinking this way.
Speaker 1:This attitude is problematic so young professionals coming into it. You be resilient, because there is a lot of different opinions out there. And then I like, think strategically, think big, because you have to see what's happened over the last decades or hundreds of years and it's not like you're trying to make a change today. That's gone. Tomorrow you want to change that's going to last decades. So what is the world going to look like in 40 years? Is this thing that you're working on going to have that impact? We're just about out of time. Is there anything you wish that I had asked you or that you wish we had talked about? Actually, I did like your questions.
Speaker 2:I wasn't actually prepared for them. I thought we would focus more on community engagement, but we did focus on it somehow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we got there yeah it's the way we could make sure that what we're doing is effective. There is a long-term impact of what we're doing, the interventions we're doing. The last comment I have is that I'm really happy that you thought of talking about global health instead of focusing on local issues, because this is the right perspective. We all need to see the issues that we're facing, the problems that we're having and wherever we live, as parts of bigger problems, bigger issues at the global level. I would advise you to talk about climate change, the things that are threatening our existence now. It's not just about well-being and health. This is important, but it goes even beyond that, so maybe this is another topic for one of your future episodes.
Speaker 1:I appreciate you coming on and sharing your insight. I think there is a lot of value in seeing the global perspective because we can be so myopic on our environment. Like you said, one of my favorite lines from this episode is that we're all in the same world. Even though it's thousands of miles away, we're at the same world and eventually it's going to come back around to reach us. So I really appreciate you coming on, magid, and hopefully chat more some other time.
Speaker 2:Sure, thank you, and thank you for having me with you on this episode.