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TB Notes NewsletterReturn to Main Menu - TB Notes 2, 2007No. 2, 2007TB EDUCATION AND TRAINING NETWORK UPDATES
Member Highlight
Margaret’s job responsibilities include planning and delivering effective training and instructional programs (primarily in English, but also in Spanish when appropriate); developing and maintaining community relationships; and facilitating collaboration and communication with external groups to ensure participation of key stakeholders, such as immigrant groups. Her duties also encompass coordinating targeted testing programs at community sites, reviewing and developing educational materials for patients and staff, and developing content for her agency’s website. In the late 1990s, Margaret began contacting TB programs around the country requesting that they share their foreign language educational materials. Through this effort, she heard about the first TB ETN conference — Culture, Language, and Literacy in TB Education and Training — in 2001. Unfortunately, she was unable to attend that conference, but has attended every TB ETN conference beginning with the following year and has learned a great deal at each one. Margaret joined the Cultural Competency subcommittee in 2002 and was impressed with the efforts of that group to identify resources for TB programs. In 2004 she volunteered to serve as the incoming co-chair of that subcommittee. “I have been most impressed with the caliber of the individuals who have served as co-chairs of this subcommittee. They have become a long-distance support network for me. Members of this subcommittee are dedicated professionals who are always willing to share resources, experiences, and insights.” She is very proud of the Cultural Competency Resource List that is available on the TB Education and Training Resources website. It is Margaret’s belief that the role of TB educators will continuously evolve with the development of new technologies, such as webinars, and diagnostic tools such as the QuantiFERON blood test. It is critical for TB ETN to continue to develop new materials to educate the public and other health professionals about these changes. As the number of TB cases and financial resources decreases in the United States, it will be even more important for TB ETN to provide a network for staff members to use in sharing resources and to provide a forum for discussing education and training issues. She also hopes that TB ETN will be able to advocate for international programs to reduce the burden of disease in other countries. Margaret’s most recent accomplishment has been the re-design of her agency’s Website, www.suburbantb.org. Margaret noted that in the past, she had been more of an “implementer” than a “developer” of products. Over the course of 10 years, she has provided in-service training in all of the long term–care facilities in the district. She also provided training and materials for school district nurses, drug abuse agency personnel, social service providers, paramedics and police departments, and other community agencies. On a more personal note, Margaret has two children in college and a husband who is a civil engineer and a geographic information systems (GIS) instructor. She is the oldest of seven daughters (no brothers). In her spare time, Margaret enjoys listening to Brazilian music, bicycling, and canoeing. She also loves traveling and seeking out new experiences as was evidenced when she traveled throughout South America for 6 months in 1976 after serving 2 years in Bahia, Brazil, as a Peace Corps volunteer. She is involved with fundraising for the Peace Corps Partnerships through the Oak Park Council on International Affairs as well as advocacy for TB through the Metropolitan Chicago TB Coalition. She is also a member of Campaign for Better Health Care, the Sao Paulo-Illinois Partners of the Americas, and the Chicago Area Peace Corps Association. If you’d like to join Margaret as a TB ETN member and
take advantage of all it has to offer, please send an
e-mail requesting a TB ETN registration form to
tbetn@cdc.gov.
The
registration form is available online
(PDF). You can also send a
request by fax to (404) 639-8960 or by mail to Please visit TB ETN if you would like additional information. —By Jeuneviette Bontemps-Jones, MPH,
CHES Cultural Competency Workgroup:
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If you would like to order any of the DTBE publications please visit the online order form. You will need Adobe Acrobat™ Reader v5.0 or higher to read pages that are in PDF format. Download the Adobe Acrobat™ Reader. If you have difficulty accessing any material on the DTBE Web site because of a disability, please contact us in writing or via telephone and we will work with you to make the information available. Division of Tuberculosis Elimination
Centers for Disease Control & Prevention |
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Margaret Marek Rohter, MPH, has been an Outreach
Program Supervisor for the Suburban Cook County TB
District in Illinois since February of 1996. She
received a bachelor of arts degree from Washington
University in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1973. Five years
later, she graduated from the University of Illinois
School of Public Health with a masters degree in public
health. Margaret is a Certified Public Health
Administrator in the state of Illinois, as well as a
Licensed Environmental Health Practitioner. In addition,
she is a fellow with the Institute of Medicine of
Chicago.