It has been a privilege to serve and represent more than 5,000 health economics graduate students in 77 countries and support the work of presidents from 107 student chapters during my term as Chair of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) Student Network in 2017-2018.
Where We Are Today
I continue to be impressed by the caliber of students I meet through ISPOR. I did not realize when accepting the position of global Chair how very amazing the network is and what it can do. This professional society treasures students and treats them like a future pharmaceutical company CEO (i.e., Drishti Shah is going to dominate), or a future HTA board member (William Hall will lead CADTH for sure), or a future Professor Emeritus (I am thinking of you, Junjie Ma). ISPOR shows this by investing time and money in students and is patient with this long-term investment. Because of this, IPSOR has gained my loyalty.
As a student-driven student network, we are resourceful, agile, hungry for knowledge, respectful, and grateful to our advisors. We have shown an incredible capacity to identify problems, develop solutions, and execute large-scale international projects. We publish newsletters, cast educational webinars, conduct surveys, showcase research, communicate resources, and much, much more.
Student Leadership Retreat
Student-Faculty Luncheon
Where We Are Going
Each year it seems that the new students are stronger than the year before.
This year I watched ISPOR student presidents sustain the responsibilities of committees, revive opportunities they found important, and create new resources with far reaching benefit beyond our own classrooms to benefit other universities and generations of students that follow us.
Over the past year, we have seen the participation of student presidents from outside the United States double on our monthly calls. We are so much better for it. This has immediate and downstream benefits for ISPOR: learning from the perspectives of health systems with different structures, preparing the next generation of global HTA board members, and encouraging consensus on methods to assess value.
| New Student Chapters | Country | Est. in 2017-2018 |
| Nnamdi Azikiwe University | Nigeria | Apr 2018 |
| Erasmus University, Rotterdam | Netherlands | Apr 2018 |
| Chapman University | USA | Apr 2018 |
| Texas A & M University | USA | Mar 2018 |
| Royal College of Surgeons | Ireland | Feb 2018 |
| Karolinska Institutet | Sweden | Feb 2018 |
| Al-Ameen College of Pharmacy | India | Feb 2018 |
| University College Cork | Ireland | Jan 2018 |
| Universidad John F Kennedy | Argentina | Dec 2017 |
| Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) | Ghana | Dec 2017 |
| Indo-Soviet Friendship College of Pharmacy | India | Dec 2017 |
| University of Newcastle | Austrailia | Sept 2017 |
I look forward to seeing how new regional student leadership positions will connect us even more. I am confident in the ISPOR student network’s ability to grow in size, diversity, and strength next year. It is time for me to get out of the way and give some rising all-star PhD students an opportunity to shine and lead.
What comes next
It is a privilege to introduce you to the next ISPOR Student Network Chair for 2018-2019, Koen Degeling, a PhD student from the University of Twente in the Netherlands. Koen has developed into an expert on discrete event simulation with mentorship from his advisor Maarten IJzerman. I am passing the torch to a strong and capable leader who is going to take this network to the next level. He is enthusiastic, motivated, and took great initiative to secure the position.
Koen served last year as co-chair of the Chapter Development Committee. He has won the ISPOR Best Student Podium Presentation Award (Milan, 2015), led a workshop during an ISPOR meeting (Glasgow, 2017), and co-taught an ISPOR short course (Baltimore, 2018), and was President when the University of Twente was selected as Best New Outstanding Student Chapter. Koen is a dreamer with a lot of ideas. He is a great communicator and facilitator. I have admired his passion to reach out to each new student president individually to offer his support throughout the year.
In addition to celebrating Koen’s individual talents, we also celebrate him as the first ISPOR Student Network Chair from outside the United States. I am confident he will effectively advocate for the student members of ISPOR, mentor many Presidents, guide the committees, facilitate monthly meetings, and enrich the experience and opportunities of all ISPOR students.
Many Thanks
I would like to thank all student chapter presidents and officers who found time between exams and dissertation research to offer their altruism and energy for the benefit of others. You taught me so much and I look forward to our professional paths crossing again in the future.
I must thank Nancy Berg for being an incredible role model as a strong, capable, and respected female CEO. I would like to thank ISPOR staff members Jason Cohen, Jennifer Casillas, Stacey Mauriello, Rebecca Corey, Lyn Beamesderfer, and Stephen Priori, for doing such a great job. I thank Zeba Kahn for advising the Student Network since its creation in 1998, and Laura Pizzi for her support as Chair of the ISPOR Faculty Advisory Council.
Thank you Shelby Reed for leveraging the power of your ISPOR presidency to launch the Women in HEOR Initiative. Thank you Professor Lou Garrison for showing and teaching me how to do all of this. Thank you Ernest Law for co-chairing the 2016-2017 Survey and Evaluation Committee with me in and providing me with real-time feedback to develop strong facilitation skills. Thank you Mark Bounthavong for introducing me to ISPOR and inviting me to be your Vice President at the University of Washington student chapter in 2015. The University of Washington chapter improves each year thanks to a cascade of strong leadership by Nathaniel Hendrix, Erik Landaas, and Shalak Gunjal.
Thanks #ISPORstudents.
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