The doctor who became the first and only person to be diagnosed with Ebola in New York City said he hopes use his notoriety to improve the understanding and treatment of epidemic diseases.
Dr. Craig Spencer is scheduled to deliver a lecture Tuesday at Wayne State University titled "The Challenges and Controversies of the Ebola Epidemic: Experiences from a Provider and Patient." Spencer is an alumnus of the Detroit university.
Spencer has told government officials that he believes future outbreaks could be minimized by deploying people who have been successfully treated for Ebola as "cultural survivors to their own communities," the Detroit Free Press reported.
"The other big issue that is as important ... is that when the Ebola epidemic is over, these countries will have health systems that are worse off than before," he said.
Spencer's lecture Tuesday will be just the third time he has spoken publicly since contracting the disease. He gave brief remarks during a press conference after being discharged from Bellevue Hospital in November, and did a series of interviews on WNYC earlier this year.
Spencer said he lost many patients in Africa, but "you were able to prevent the deaths of a few people every day, and over time, that means you saved hundreds and thousands of people."
Sometimes there is no single established way to treat a patient, he said.
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"There isn't an algorithm. There isn't a manual about how to treat if you're pregnant and have Ebola," Spencer said.
Spencer, a graduate of Grosse Pointe North High School near Detroit, was diagnosed Oct. 23, days after returning from treating Ebola patients in Guinea with Doctors Without Borders.
"I survived because I had much more advanced care. I had 24-hour, round-the-clock attention from a very well-prepared and well-trained hospital staff," Spencer said. "There are more people on staff at the hospital where I was treated than were in all three countries combined before the outbreak."
Spencer also will receive the Global Peacemaker Award from Wayne State University's Center for Peace and Conflict Studies.
Global public health issues such as the Ebola epidemic "are clearly related to the ravages of war, violence and poverty, which have decimated public health systems in places like Liberia," said Frederic Pearson, director of the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies.
