IPHA Governor's Conference on Public Health

Hello all!

So the last few weeks have been crazy busy with Governor's Conferences on Public Health to award ceremonies to just about everything in-between. The main highlight I want to get across is the Iowa Public Health Association (IPHA) Governor's Conference on Public Health I attended. This conference was held in Ames, IA, which is about an 1 1/2 to 2 hours going northwest from Iowa City. In a nutshell, it is located pretty much in the middle of the state of Iowa just north of Des Moines.

This was my first time attending the conference and definitely not my last. The first thing on the Agenda for Tuesday April 5th was to arrive at 4:30PM for a IPHA Finance Committee meeting. I was nominated for the position by one of my peers who previously served on the committee. The meeting was more of a greet and meet, because most of the meetings held throughout the year are over the phone. You get to accomplish a lot during the meetings, but it's always nice to meet face to face. Even being in Iowa, there were so many small world connections made, especially with people traveling, living or working within my hometown of Rockford!

Moving on, there was a networking dinner later that night that was well attended by state and local public health officials, including one of my bosses/mentors Chris Atchison, who is the director of the State Hygienic Lab (SHL). After a long day of traveling, meeting and dinning, I pretty much passed out for the night to get ready for the 7:00AM start the next day. Throughout Wednesday, I attended seminars that ranged from implementing a state-wide Health Information Exchange system to learning about epidemiological case studies of diseases that people brought back to Iowa from traveling abroad and how the SHL handle each case (very interesting and kind of scary stuff!). The short 2-day conference ended with probably one of the best speakers I have seen in awhile, Magda Peck. She touched on the "Being the Powers that Be." Her main point was to make sure we were not passive in public health and to learn how to put power to the fore front and how it can influence people. This sounds so basic, but with her stories and examples, it was a fresh reminder of how powerful you can be by making simple adjustments and kind of what motivates you to do something, or someone motivating you to do that action.

All in all, a great experience and did I mention all paid for (except for food :() by the MPH program! If there is one thing I have learned more how to do, is to seek out the opportunities and how to write submissions/grants for payment, it's essential for any future public health or health related professionals out there!

Have a good week!

Ryan