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Ultrasound Research and Education Institute in 1990. The institute trains physicians worldwide in regional ultrasound education centers who then return to their respective countries to teach what they have learned to others. There are currently 37 training centers, and physicians from Central and Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean and Latin and South America have been trained through affiliate centers worldwide. True to its tradition of global learning, Jefferson has made contributions that range from the translation of its Scale of Empathy into 42 languages to a recent study that found that a re-sterilization and implantation strategy for explanted implantable cardioverter-defibrillators could have important humanitarian and economic effects for citizens of low- and middle-income nations. A renewed global health presence will build on Jefferson’s strengths of academics, clinical training and research excellence, contributing to the spread of equity in health for all people and the advancement of scientific knowledge resulting from global collaboration.
Masashi Rotte, MD, examining an infant in South Sudan. Photo courtesy of Dr. Rotte.
Jefferson’s First Global Health Fellow In 2011, Masashi Rotte, MD, was selected as Jefferson’s first Global Health Fellow, a post-residency program that is a joint effort between the Department of Emergency Medicine and the School of Population Health. Through the fellowship, Rotte is earning a Master’s of Public Health and completing field training in St. Lucia, South Sudan and Sierra Leone. The fellowship was inspired by a trip to Sierra Leone by the program’s now-directors, Bon Kun, MD, and Harsh Sule, MD. Sierra Leone has grim records of population health, with an average life expectancy of 49, total health expenditure of 3.5 percent of the gross domestic product and one doctor per 50,000 people — the equivalent of having 29 doctors to treat all of Philadelphia. Rotte’s first overseas stint in the fellowship was through the International Medical Corps to St. Lucia, where he worked in a small hospital that serves the indigenous population, giving lectures and providing bedside training. In summer 2012, he went to South Sudan through the Corps again and worked for six weeks in a refugee camp, followed by six weeks in a rural town. This past February, he traveled to Sierra Leone through the U.S.-based NGO Global Action Foundation and Sierra Leone-based Wellbody Alliance. Besides seeing common worldwide health issues like skin infections, abscesses and pneumonia, Rotte tackles conditions specific to the developing world, such as malaria, parasitic infections and fecal-oral infections from unclean drinking water. Since these developing countries don’t have separate emergency departments, Rotte invests his time teaching local physicians how to quickly diagnose and treat people. “I’m trying to teach them some of the concepts we have here — to quickly triage, diagnose and treat patients,” he says. “The goal is to educate people and improve what they do with what they have. For instance, you can’t go in and teach them how to use a CAT machine because they don’t have one. You make do.” After the fellowship, Rotte hopes to continue a career in academic emergency medicine or with an NGO. He says his long-term hope for his missions to developing countries is not to do some doctoring and then leave: It’s to teach the healthcare providers to do a better job with what they have. “It’s the difference between giving a man a fish and teaching a man to fish,” he says. “My goal is to give them education and experience.”
Kenichiro Hasumi, MD, with Joseph Gonnella, MD, and Takami Sato, MD, PhD, at Dr. Sato’s investiture as the K. Hasumi Professor of Medical Oncology.