2018 Councilor candidate
Christina Coyle, MD
Albert Einstein College of Medicine, NY
Personal Statement
ASTMH’s strength is the people that make up the society. They are dedicated and passionate about tropical medicine and invested in moving the society forward. Members consider this their academic home away from their own institution and they bring to the Society a great breadth of expertise within tropical medicine across many disciplines. We have grown tremendously in the past ten years as a society adding more layers of expertise and opportunities for collaboration, but this growth has also meant there are rapidly changing needs.
An explosion in interest in global health has led ASTMH to develop a Global Health Subgroup (ACGH) and an annual Global Health Pre-Meeting Course. At the same time there has also been an increasing interest in the care of migrants thanks to the work of many individuals in this society. Simultaneous to the expansion of both global and migrant health, many medical schools are undergoing curriculum reform leading to fewer hours devoted to tropical medicine and exposure for the student. This has led to an educational gap, which needs to be filled, and ASTMH is well poised to meet this need. There are opportunities to partner with other societies, develop interactive material and sessions at the Annual Meeting and much more. Recently ASTMH has carved out a position entitled, Chair of Clinical Tropical and Travel Medicine Education Program with John Sanders, MD, MPH, FASTMH of Wake Forest University appointed to this role. This is a wonderful beginning for our educational mission. I have been leading clinical courses for the Society for several years and I am interested in playing a role as we move forward at the inception to help creatively think about further opportunities for growth. I have been working with John [Sanders] on assessing and expanding our activities and I feel that I will be able to provide even greater support for this effort from the position of Councilor. We have been purposeful this past year in designing education and outreach efforts addressing migrant care. I hope to continue working to expand our activities around migrant medicine in the Society. I have made long lasting friendships at ASTMH and developed collaborations and am deeply committed to ASTMH. I would be honored to serve as a Councilor.
Summary of Volunteer/Member Roles in ASTMH
I have actively participated in the functions of ASTMH in several different roles over the years. I have co-directed the annual ASTMH Update Course since 2008, which provides clinically relevant education in the field of tropical medicine and parasitology, in order to reduce global health disparities. I have served on the Courses Committee, which oversees the ASTMH Pre-Courses and the Update Course, since 2008. In 2013 I assumed the role of Co-chair of the Courses Committee and have recently become a member of the Clinical Tropical and Travel Medicine Education Program Committee. Additionally, I am a member of the Infectious Diseases Society of America’s (IDSA) and ASTMH (American Society Tropical Medicine and Hygiene) Clinical Standards and Treatment Guidelines Committee for Neurocysticercosis.
Biographical Information
Dr. Coyle, a Professor of Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, has been practicing tropical medicine for twenty-five years and is recognized as an expert in the larval tapeworms neurocysticercosis and echinococcus. She has co-authored chapters and articles on these and many other tropical diseases and runs an active Tropical Medicine Clinic in the Bronx in New York City. Since 2007 she has been a site director for GeoSentinel, the global surveillance network of the International Society of Travel Medicine (ISTM) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She also functions in the Infectious Diseases Society of America’s (IDSA) and American Society Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) Clinical Standards and Treatment Guidelines Committee for neurocysticercosis. In addition, she co-directs the annual ASTMH Update Course since 2008, which provides clinically relevant education in the field of tropical medicine and parasitology, in order to reduce global health disparities. Dr. Coyle is a deeply committed educator. Since her faculty appointment at Einstein in 1995, she has served in many different roles in medical education and has been the recipient of almost every teaching award at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. In 2007, she was appointed course director of Parasitology and Global Medicine Course in the second-year medical student curriculum at Albert Einstein.
Dr. Coyle is a much-sought-after teacher and lectures frequently at other medical schools in New York City. As of 2010, she also lectures in the parasitology section of the microbiology course at Columbia University College of Physician and Surgeons in New York City. She is the principal investigator for a CDC cooperative grant, "Reducing the burden of neglected parasitic infections (NPIs) in the United States through evidence-based prevention and control activities" and a site principal investigator for a CDC funded grant "Reduction of Malaria in the US Residents Returning from Overseas Travel" out of the University of Minnesota. Since 2007, Dr. Coyle has been the Assistant Dean for Faculty Development at The Albert Einstein College of Medicine. The Office of Faculty Development, a unit of the Office of Medical Education, tailors programs that meet the varied needs of Einstein faculty.