2012 - Health Care Professionals - Dartmouth-Hitchcock

GLOBAL SURGERY INITIATIVEKurt K. Rhynhart, MDAssistant Professor of SurgeryGeneral SurgeryUnder the stewardship of RichardFreeman, MD, the Department of Surgeryis increasing its global surgery efforts. Incollaboration with Dartmouth College,Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth-Hitchcock (D-H), and Partners In Health(PIH), Dr. Freeman demonstrated hiscommitment to global surgery earlyin his tenure as Chair by deploying amultidisciplinary surgical team in responseto the Haitian earthquake of 2010. Sincethat initial effort, Rajan Gupta MD, Chiefof the Division of Trauma and AcuteSurgical Care, has continued to work withPIH by supporting the construction of anew hospital facility in the town ofMirebalais, Haiti.More recently, we have begun to focusadditional resources in Africa. At present,we are working with local physicians inTanzania; our goal is to advise and assistefforts to improve health care deliveryand to improve the quality of surgicaloutcomes in the developing world.Drs. Freeman, Finlayson, and Rhynharttravelled to Muhambili UniversityHospital in Dar es Salaam,Tanzania in thespring of 2012 as the guests of the Chiefof Surgery, Dr. Mchembe. We spent anumber of days touring their facility,meeting the staff, and learning abouthealth care in Tanzania. Aims of the tripwere to explore mutually beneficialcollaborations in the clinical, research, andeducational arenas. This initial trip forgedrelationships that resulted in a journeyto Dartmouth for a Tanzanian medicalstudent named Gloria Ngaiza. Ms. Ngaizaspent the summer of 2012 observingvarious surgical services including surgicaloncology and plastic surgery. As recentlyas August, 2012, Dr. Finlayson returned toTanzania to assist with a SAGES sponsoredlaparoscopic course which was wellreceived by the Tanzanian surgeons hementored. We look forward to supportingsimilar reciprocal exchanges of medicalstudents, surgical residents, and staffsurgeons in the coming years. We also aredeveloping relationships in Rwanda. TheHuman Resources for Health (HRH)Program was established to build thehealth education infrastructure and healthcare workforce in order to create asustainable quality health care system inRwanda. The HRH Program is aconsortium of academic institutions that40