How Dr. Vanessa Kerry Helps Strengthen Health Systems Around the World

Dr. Vanessa Kerry is the Co-founder and CEO of Seed Global Health. This is an international NGO that works in five sub-Saharan countries to bolster the education of medical professionals.

This is a vital endeavor, as Dr. Kerry explains, because it goes to the core of strengthening the capacity of developing world countries to improve their health care systems.

We kick off discussing the newest ebola outbreak in the DRC  and the challenge outbreaks pose to weak health systems. This is a particularly alarming outbreak for the fact that it is occurring a region of the DRC that is very much a hot conflict zone.  We then have a broader conversation about the challenge of strengthening health systems in poorer countries and discuss the specific work of Seed Global Health to that end.

Dr. Kerry came to national attention in 2004, when she introduced her father, John Kerry, at the Democratic National Convention, and she describes how her interest in global health issues was sparked by a trip to …