Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text! In this final episode of 2020, the mic is turned on Sujani as she gets interviewed by her friend Lathika about the one year journey of producing the PH SPOTlight podcast. In this celebratory episode, they talk about the past, present, and future of PH SPOT. You’ll Learn How Sujani is feeling about one year of podcasting, especially having launched PHSpotlight a few months before the pandemic started Sujani’s full story of discovering pub...
Dec 24, 2020•41 min
Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text! Show Notes In this episode, Sujani talks about MPH (Master of Public Health) program prep! Applications for this graduate program are often due at the end of the year or early the following year. As students gear up to apply for the MPH degree of their dreams, Sujani shares two tips for those prepping for the MPH program, inspired by a blog post that we published in early 2019. You’ll Learn About the “What I wish I knew before my MPH” bl...
Dec 03, 2020•10 min
Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text! Show Notes In this episode, Sujani sits down with Ama Kyeremeh, to speak about a day in the life of a public health research coordinator. Ama has worked in this role with an organization in British Columbia, Canada that focuses on women’s health. She takes us through how she became interested in the field, what a day looks like, and more. You’ll Learn Ama’s journey into public health How Ama gained public health experience early on durin...
Nov 05, 2020•34 min
Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text! Show Notes Today on the show, Sujani speaks about leadership once again . We introduced the topic of leadership in public health on the PHSPOTlight podcast in episode 12 with Nadia Akseer . In that kick-off episode, we committed to bringing conversations with more of our peers around the topic of leadership. We want leadership in public health to be a skill that you are constantly thinking about building on, as much as (if not more) than...
Sep 23, 2020•54 min•Ep. 20
Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text! Show Notes Today on the show, Sujani sits down with Erica Di Ruggiero to talk about some very exciting news for Canada! In May 2020, the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health announced the much-anticipated Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) program – the first of its kind in Canada. The DrPH has been a topic of interest amongst our PH SPOT community members for some time now. Last year, we published a blog post written b...
Sep 08, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 19
Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text! Show Notes After writing the Opinion piece on the PH SPOT blog, The rise of infographics, and why I believe all public health professionals should know how to design one , Sujani wanted to get behind the mic to explain why she believes this. In this solo episode, Sujani tells you what infographics are, how infographics have been used in public health, and why public health professionals need to have excellent communication skills, includ...
Aug 25, 2020•13 min•Ep. 18
Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text! Show Notes In this episode, Sujani sits down with a friend from her MPH program, Sameena Vadivelu, to speak about a day in the life of a program evaluator. Sameena has worked as a program evaluator in a local health unit and takes us through how she became interested in the field, her job application journey, what a day looks like, and more. You’ll Learn What is program evaluation? And how it compared to what she had anticipated it to be...
Aug 13, 2020•36 min•Ep. 17
Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text! Show Notes In this episode, Sujani shares a presentation she did last year to the ThriveHire audience. Having recently found this video, and listening to it again now almost a year later, we felt that the advice couldn’t be any more important right now. So we decided to put it up here on our podcast, as well as a little bit about our Infographics 101 course that ties in with tip #3. So, enjoy this episode, brought to you by Sujani, from ...
Jul 21, 2020•14 min•Ep. 16
Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text! Show Notes In this episode, we’re talking about preparing for your MPH degree in the time of COVID-19. Some of you may be feeling unsure about how things are going to be when classes start. Perhaps you’re feeling some anxiety, or have many questions around whether your experience is going to be valuable. We’re here to tell you that these feelings you are experiencing are valid. This episode is to give you a bit of comfort and to convince...
May 19, 2020•15 min•Ep. 15
Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text! Show Notes This is the second episode we are recording since the COVID-19 pandemic. As we all try to navigate this new way of life, we at PH SPOT wanted to switch things up and produce a few podcast episodes that are different from our original show. In today’s episode, Sujani sits down with someone special. You may have heard his name in our intro episode, or in some of our email communications. If you guessed Kajanth, you are absolutel...
Apr 14, 2020•45 min•Ep. 14
Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text! Show Notes This is the first episode Sujani sat down to record since COVID-19 became a pandemic. And we know that it is a tough time for every single one of us. We are new to physically distancing ourselves from families and friends, and holding game night and coffee chats over a video call are just not the same…and we now have to adjust to having children and the entire family at home 24/7, and for some, the transition to working from h...
Mar 31, 2020•57 min•Ep. 13
Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text! Show Notes Leadership is fascinating. From the way movements are formed by a single individual to how that single individual is able to inspire change amongst others. Undoubtedly, we can argue that leadership is very important in public health. In thinking about how we, as public health practitioners, can ensure that leadership is a skill that we constantly think about building on, we want to have conversations with our peers so that we ...
Mar 24, 2020•44 min•Ep. 12
Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text! Show Notes You’ve probably heard of the saying “growth and change lies outside of your comfort zone”, and this is true for our careers too. To advance in our careers, we need to do things that we are not comfortable with, whether that’s standing up and presenting at a large meeting, saying yes to a project that scares us, or perhaps even pushing a little bit more than usual, and relocating to a new city or even country for a public healt...
Mar 17, 2020•31 min•Ep. 11
Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text! We launched the Career Advancement and Family Life series in the last episode with our guest Lathika Laguwaran . We are big believers here at PH SPOT of learning from those who have done something before us and using their lessons and experiences to craft our own path. We want to share the stories of public health professionals at various phases of their lives and careers to get a glimpse into their way of life and thinking. We hope you ...
Mar 10, 2020•43 min•Ep. 10
Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text! Family life and career advancement is a topic that deserves more than just one episode so we are committing to bringing you different perspectives on this podcast. We are big believers here at PH SPOT of learning from those who have done something before us, and using their lessons and experiences to craft our own path based on our unique situations. We want to share the stories of public health professionals at various phases of their l...
Mar 03, 2020•46 min•Ep. 9
Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text! At some point in time we have all been in a position where we ponder on what our next step is going to be in our career journey. Sophiya Garasia faced a similar inflection point where she was trying to identify her next step after her degree in public health. In her search through self reflection, she discovered that medical school was not for her. She shared this introspection via the post “Why I will not be applying for medical school”...
Feb 26, 2020•29 min•Ep. 8
Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text! To continue with our theme of public health consulting, we speak with Stephanie Hodges of Nourished Principles – a US-based consultative service that empowers individuals to make healthy, nutritious choices, and help communities, organizations, businesses, and schools to create healthier environments. Stephanie’s journey is different from that of Leah Roman’s ( last episode guest ) in that Stephanie decided to quit her full-time job to p...
Feb 18, 2020•52 min•Ep. 7
Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text! Consulting has gotten a lot of interest in the public health space recently. For many reasons, public health professionals have chosen to explore consulting and have built careers around it. We have even seen interest within our PH SPOT community, and have been asked for resources by you to help you take the first step. Until now, we were not able to provide you with any resources or support around this topic because we hadn’t found anyt...
Feb 11, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 6
Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text! Today’s episode is not with a public health professional, but rather a “friend of public health” – this is what we are calling the individuals who can support us with the services, advice/tips, and value they are able to share. Today’s friend of public health is Kiriga Konalingam, an HR recruiter who has worked in public health organizations hiring public health professionals. We wanted to bring someone like Kiriga on the show to talk ab...
Feb 04, 2020•1 hr•Ep. 5
Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text! Networking is undoubtedly one of the most important things you can do to build your public health career, but it’s a topic that doesn’t get enough attention or training in public health. It is also an activity that most people don’t enjoy (at least the conventional idea of networking). You’ll be happy to know then that when we say “networking”, we are not only talking about attending large events to pitch yourself to strangers. To us, yo...
Jan 28, 2020•44 min•Ep. 4
Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text! I am so excited to introduce you to today’s episode because it marks the beginning of a mini series of episodes that will be a part of PH SPOTlight: The Entrepreneurship Series. It’s a topic that I am particularly passionate about so I am thrilled to have the opportunity to produce this series. The goal of the entrepreneurship series is to share stories of entrepreneurs in the public health space who are building great products. The hope...
Jan 28, 2020•45 min•Ep. 3
Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text! We have Amalia Plotogea here on this episode; and Amalia’s name might sound familiar because you may have read about her experience being a surveillance officer in Bangladesh to support the World Health Organization’s response to the Rohingya refugee crisis on our Blog . I brought Amalia on the podcast to ask her more about her field epidemiology experience because you all wanted to hear more. She tells us about two different deployments...
Jan 28, 2020•38 min•Ep. 2
Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text! It’s January 28, 2020, and today we launch PH SPOT’s very own podcast show, PH SPOTlight. In this first episode, Sujani Siva (the host of the show) tells you about herself, PH SPOT, and PH SPOTlight, and what this podcast means to us. In future episodes, Sujani sits down with public health heroes of our time to share career stories, inspiration, and guidance for building public health careers. From time to time, she also has conversation...
Jan 26, 2020•8 min•Ep. 1
