May 2024 Global Health Community Newsletter

Thanks for attending the 2024 MGH Global Health Expo!

With 22 tables from programs and organizations promoting global health work, this year’s expo was attended by more than 100 people from within and outside the Mass General Brigham community.

Four awards were given as part of the Global Health Service Awards program:

• Excellence in Research and Innovation Award
  Gugu Shazi
  Africa Health Research Institute
  Professional Nurse, Autopsy Study Program Coordinator

• Excellence in Education and Mentorship Award
  Daniel Neves Forte, MD
  Hospital Sírio-Libanês, Brazil Intensive Care Physician

• Excellence in Education and Mentorship Award
  Kathleen Corey, MD, MPH
  Harvard Medical School Associate Professor of Medicine

• Excellence in Global Disaster Response and Humanitarian Action Award
  Lianet Vazquez, MD
  Massachusetts General Hospital Resident Physician

Health Tech Without Borders with Global Response Medicine hosts Ukrainian Delegation of Physicians from Kharkiv in Boston, MA

Responding to an urgent request by the Ukrainian government, GRM partnered with the World Health Organization and the EU Foreign Policy Initiative in 2023 to support a fellowship for Ukrainian physicians tasked with acute care during the war. In collaboration with Health Tech Without Borders, Heal Ukraine Group, Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Global Health, Boston Medical Center, and Boston University, eight fellows came to Boston to train at Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston Medical Center.

See the press release for more information.

Dr. Anne Kao, MD, MPH served as a Visiting Faculty at UGHE in May.

Co-Director of the Pediatric Hospitalist Division at Massachusetts General Hospital for Children, Anne Kao, MD, MPH, reports back from her time as a Visiting Faculty at the University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda:

“I spent the week at the Rwanda Military Hospital, along with my colleague and fellow Pediatric Hospitalist Kerstin Zanger, to teach the first class of graduating medical students from the University of Global Health Equity. It was also the school’s first class going through a senior pediatric clerkship. The schedule of morning report, rounds, sim, didactics, case review and case presentations were very familiar to me, given the rhythms of academic medicine here at MGH. The students were incredibly bright, inquisitive and eager to learn. The level of discourse and discussion with these curious and capable students was certainly equivalent to that which I experience here at MGH with our learners. 

“I am eager to return and strengthen the relationship between UGHE and the MGfC Pediatric Hospitalist Division in order to continue to provide faculty as well as curriculum (Dr. Zanger and I helped create several didactic case based learning topics as well as OSCEs for the students) to further the training missions of UGHE as well as MGfC.”

Please welcome Isabel Lana, C-CHW, as the new Program Coordinator for the MGH Asylum Clinic and the MGH Center for Immigrant Health.

Isabel Lana, C-CHW, is a certified Community Health Worker and has a BA in Psychology. Prior to joining this position, she was the Program Coordinator at MGH Equity and Community Health. Being a first-generation immigrant from Brazil is what fuels her passion to work in the field of immigrant health.

Dr. Awki Asombang receives mentorship award

Shout out to Awki Asombang, MD, MPH! Recently she received an award for Global Mentorship from the Medical Women’s International Association (Near East and Africa Region) and the Medical Women’s Association of Zambia for her work in mentoring African medical students and early career doctors through POHER (the Pan-African Organization for Health, Education and Research), the NGO she co-founded and for which she serves as president.

View the latest Global Health Community Meeting Minutes

Opportunities to Engage

• The Global Health Delivery Intensive (GHDI) will be offered this summer July 9-26, 2024. The intensive is a non-degree program offered virtually by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School. The three-week program is best suited for mid-career health professionals who seek training in healthcare delivery concepts and skills. Learn more and apply here. If you have any questions, please contact ghdi@globalhealthdelivery.org.

• Mass General’s Hispanic Psychiatry Clinic is continuing to grow. They are accepting referrals for monolingual Spanish-speaking patients who receive primary specialty care at MGH. PCPs can refer patients for psychopharmacology services via the PTIS Epic referral, or contact the clinic at 617-643-7998.

• We are building a global health library in our office. Feel free to stop by, check out a book and please add books to the list here.Some suggested topics to get you thinking include: diversity, equity and inclusion, global health, leadership and decolonizing global health. We’re excited to see your picks!

• Do you have Boston area accommodations (a guest room, perhaps) that you can offer to our international collaborators traveling to Boston for short-term stays? If you’re able to host, please complete this REDcap survey.

• Interested in becoming a Global Health Affiliate or Associate? Learn more here.

Do you engage in global health work or want to find ways to get involved?

Complete the MGH Global Health Annual Survey today!

Click here or on the QR code to complete the REDcap survey.

Get in touch!

If you want to include a news item, opportunity or anything else in a future monthly newsletter, you can reach us at cghadmin@mgh.harvard.edu.