YEAR IN REVIEW
2016
Celebrating GHETS: 15 Years of Global Health Collaboration Women and Health Task Force: Champions of Community Health
In Memoriam: Dr. Rogayah Ja’afar Elderly Task Force: Geriatric Health Curriculum Development
Dear GHETS Family and Friends, Thank you for taking the time to read through our 2016 newsletter. It brings me great joy to tell you that this upcoming year is the 15th anniversary of GHETS! Through your support, GHETS has developed long lasting partnerships over the years that have facilitated impactful and sustainable change in communities worldwide. Looking back on the last 15 years, it’s clear to see that GHETS has remained true to its mission and vision of improving the health of underserved communities through comprehensive and community oriented capacity building. Through mini grants, global conferences, consultancies, and many other activities, GHETS has supported countless community health care champions and connected pioneers across the Global South to share best practices. Whether you have supported GHETS for one year or for fifteen, we thank you. Thank you for your commitment to service and to those working globally who inspire us daily by their selfless promotion of health equity. May you always prosper and have much joy. In Solidarity,
David Egilman, MD MPH
Mary M Guirguis, MPH
SOUTHEAST ASIA
Spotlight on Primary Health Care Advancement in Cambodia The GHETS-Boston University Global Health Collaborative partnership has once again had a very productive year. In March 2016, Dr. Laura Goldman participated in the General Medicine Curriculum Dissemination Workshop. This was the culmination of 2 years collaboration of GHETS and the Cambodia University of Health Sciences (UHS) that produced the first competency-based curriculum for the training of general medicine doctors in Cambodia. Over 50 physicians, mostly hospital-based teachers, attended the workshop. The curriculum is now in use, and includes the first ever clinical evaluation of interns at UHS.
Dr. Jen Pfau and Dr. Steve Cummings, from Boston University and GHETS, each spent a full week teaching 60 students in the UHS International Program. They introduced novel curriculum illustrating continuity of care and other principles of modern primary care,
the first time the students learned these concepts. They both contributed to the new skills lab in the medical school, introducing new methods and curriculum on history taking, physical exam, and communication skills. GHETS sponsored 5 UHS faculty and 6 UHS students to take the 12 week online Essentials in Medical Education Course. This course, delivered by AMEE, an international Association for Medical Education was highly rated by the participants, who learned modern methods of teaching that have been adopted worldwide. Evaluation of the course demonstrated many participants found new inspiration for teaching medicine. The Family Medicine Interest Group (FMIG), a group of 20 UHS students, conducted a qualitative study of their fellow students’ interest in family medicine. Their abstract was accepted at the 21st Wonca World Conference of Family Doctors, held in Rio De Janeiro in November. Other invited speakers from the GHETS-UHS Cambodia project include Prof Ung Vibol, Associate Dean, Dr. Laura Goldman, and Dr. Jeff Markuns, also from BU and GHETS. They spoke about International Collaborations in Medical Education. The FMIG continues to sponsor service projects and Saturday discussions on family medicine for interested students.
WOMEN AND HEALTH TASK FORCE Champions of Health in the Community The Women and Health Task Force (WHTF) has had a year of growth and dynamic work. At the annual Network TUFH meeting, held this year in Shenyang, China, the Task Force decided to start three thematic working groups based on the work and research interests of the members. These three groups are Adolescent, Sexual, and Reproductive Health, Violence against Women, and Nutrition and Women’s Health. At the TUFH meeting, the WHTF also hosted a film screening addressing the plight of women with HIV in China. The film was eye-opening for many participants and generated dynamic discussion on the complexity of HIV/AIDS in China. The WHTF continues to establish their presence in the global academic community through their participation in various conferences and symposiums. Most recently, their abstract for a workshop and panel on women’s health was accepted for presentation at the upcoming World Federation of Public Health Associations meeting in Melbourne, Australia in 2017.
There were many excellent submissions for mini-grants this year by members of the WHTF. The topics for the mini-grant submissions were: Disseminating Women’s Health Information to Adolescent Girls in Nigeria Awareness of Malnutrition and Stunted Growth among Children in Rural Northern Nigeria through Education Improving Menstrual Knowledge and Skills of School-aged Adolescent Girls in Menstrual Hygiene Management in Kumi District, Uganda Health of Poor Tribal Women in Relation to Agriculture Status, in A Hilly Forestry Region of India Engaging Rural Men and Boys in Indian Villages to Curb Violence against Women in India Promoting Gender Sensitivity and Zero Tolerance of Violence against Women among College Students in Rural India
IN MEMORIAM:
Dr. ROGAYAH JA’AFAR January 8, 1955-January 28, 2016 Professor Dr Rogayah graduated from the University of Cairo, Egypt in 1980 with Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (MBBCh – Hons). She obtained her Master of Health Professional Education (MHPEd) from the University of New South Wales, Australia, in 1986 and her postgraduate fellowship certificate in Health Leadership Development (ICHLD) from the University of Chicago, Illinois, USA, in 2000. She pioneered the Department of Medical Education in Malaysia shortly after she received her master degree. She devoted her life to improve the quality of health education for the health profession by organizing numerous faculty development workshops as well as research related to the field of medical education. Her areas of interest were in curriculum development, leadership and partnership, problem-based learning, community-oriented education, student assessment and program evaluation. Dr Rogayah Ja’afar along with Nighat Huda, Amany Rafaat, and Judy Lewis were the founding members of the WHTF in 1991 in Illorin, Nigeria. She went on to become the Chair of the Network until her illness. Professor Dr Rogayah was an internationally recog-
nized medical educationist. She held the presidency of the Asian Pacific Association of Problem-Based Learning in the Health Sciences in September 2008. She also served on the GHETS Board of Directors for several years. Rogayah will be remembered for her gentle and kind spirit and for her great accomplishments. She will be deeply missed, but her legacy lives on in the work of the Women and Health Taskforce.
Celebrating Judy and Stuart Champions of Health in the Community
On behalf of our program partners worldwide, GHETS would like to thank Judy Lewis for the many donations that were made to the Women and Health Task Force in honor of her late husband, Stuart Sakovich, and in celebration of her 70th birthday. These donations will be used to fund mini-grant proposals for women’s health in the global South. We celebrate the lifelong commitment that both she and Stuart made to improve women’s health globally and we offer our sincere condolences to Judy for the loss of her dear husband.
CONSAMS Developing a Pilot Family
Medicine Program in Namibia At the Network TUFH meeting, GHETS facilitated a meeting between two of our partners-the Consortium of New South African Medical Schools (CONSAMS) and the Boston University Global Health Collaborative (BUGHC). One of the main outcomes of this meeting was a development of a proposal to launch a family medicine medical school residency program in Namibia. This would not only be the first of such residencies in the country of Namibia, but would be a pilot program for the CONSAMS group. Together they submitted a proposal to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to fund this program. Having a Family Medicine program local to Namibia would ensure better health outcomes for the entire
community. Currently, 1 out of every 26 Namibian children does not survive till their first birthday and 1 out of 19 does not survive until the age of five. Increasing the availability of family medicine physicians at the primary level will also reduce the number of patient referrals to the central level which are costly and cumbersome due to long distances. Implementing this program in Namibia would ensure that family medicine physicians are able to adapt their comprehensive set of skills to the circumstances, local needs, and available resources within the communities they serve. This also allows skills and competencies to be standardized across all family medicine physicians to ensure adequate quality of care in both rural and urban settings.
PROSSTRAB: Advocating for the Health of Workers in Nicaragua
Promotion of Workers’ Health and Safety (PROSSTRAB in Spanish) has been one of the longest standing projects that GHETS has continuously supported over the last 15 years. PROSSTRAB focuses on providing training and advocacy for occupational health; research and surveillance of occupational health conditions in Nicaragua. PROSSTRAB continues to offer critical training in occupational safety and health for low-income workers and healthcare personnel, support the provision of occupational health services to workers at a clinic affiliated with UNAN-León, and promote local and regional efforts to improve worker health and safety. PROSSTRAB’s work in recent years has focused on further developing legal and resource management skills and resources to ensure sustainability of the organization, while continuing
to improve occupational health in Nicaragua through training, advocacy and research. Notably in the past year, PROSSTRAB has: - Developed tools for collecting information on accidents and occupational diseases - Visited PROINCO (a concrete masonry) to offer clinical exams and diagnostic tests and provided volunteer hours, subsidized transportation costs to and from the company which strengthened the relationship between PROSSTRAB and PROINCO - Carried out a safety and hygiene trainings on Law 618 and a second training on risk mapping
THE ELDERLY TASKFORCE Geriatric Health Curriculum Development The Elderly Task Force, a task force of the Network towards Unity for Health (TUFH), promotes community-based care of older persons among students. This care provides opportunities to develop skills in communication, interdisciplinary collaboration and teamwork. The task force also works to establish standards for goals of care and facilitating decision making, comprehensive health assessment including use of standardized instruments, and advocacy for geriatric patients’ expressed needs, interests, and varying abilities. Methods used include clinical rounds and rotations, role play, audio-visual interactive learning resources, including e-learning, community based teaching/field trips, home visits and visits to the community-based care services, multi-disciplinary projects, and inter-professional training. The physicians of the next generation need to be competent to handle the varying issues of the elderly, especially given the increasing population of this age group worldwide.
GHETS awards annual mini-grants of $2,000-$5,000 to members of the task force who develop innovative medical education best practices in geriatric care. In 2016, four projects were funded and they are as follows: “Equipping students with quality of life and health needs assessment among urban dwelling elderly” (College of Health Sciences Makerere University, Uganda) “Sustaining faculty training about the elderly for undergraduate teaching (SUFET)” (College of Health Sciences Makerere University, Uganda) “Elderly Care Student Research” (Babcock University, Nigeria) “Perceptions and Learning of Health Professionals, Adolescents, and Young about Day To Day Life Problems of Elderly Women Of Rural Hilly Forestry Region” (Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, India)
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Our Partners Celebrate 15 Years Our partners reflect on fifteens years of impact that GHETS has had in advocating for health equity, advancing human resources for health, and southsouth interprofessional collaboration. We thank our partners for their tireless dedication to the health of their communities and we trust that through our continued partnership we can continue to touch the lives of many.
“Our partnership with GHETS has pushed us to build a platform to address institutional power locally while having an impact globally.”
“GHETS has proved themselves to be invested in long term capacity building in the new medical schools in southern Africa both at the individual level as evidenced in professional development and at community level.“ Keikantse Matlhagela, CONSAMS
Alexis Barnes, GlobeMed
“GHETS is a progressive, committed organization that contributes to build a better world.” Deyanira Gonzalez de Leon, Women and Health Task Force
“GHETS embraces all people across the world through its outstretched hand to impact communities” Faith Nawagi, Elderly Task Force
“An organization that makes it possible to reach the underserved in medical education” Noeline Nakasujja, Elderly Task Force
Global Health through Education, Training and Service (508) 226-5091 x15
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