For American trainees:
Partners for Pediatric Progress is providing training experiences for U.S. medical students and residents in low resource settings. Trainees have the opportunity to improve their clinical practice and decision making with fewer diagnostic tests available, and to see tropical disease processes that they would never see in the United States. There’s also evidence that such experiences promote more humanism, cultural sensitivity and a greater commitment to working with underserved populations here at home, thus benefiting the future of health care in the United States as well.
For Our International Partners:
Partners in Pediatric Progress is also committed to providing relevant and high-impact training opportunities for health care workers and trainees in low resource settings. This training may occur in-country by visiting US faculty, or may involve travel to an international conference or medical center. We are committed to responding to the needs in each setting.
Here are a few of many examples:
When we established our partnership in Mozambique, there was only one surgeon in the country dedicated to addressing the pediatric surgical needs of a nation with over 10 million children. Over the past five years, we have supported the development and training of pediatric surgeons in Mozambique, through multiple exchange trips. These individuals are now training several more surgeons, who will soon form the future Department of Pediatric Surgery at the main teaching hospital in the country, with plans to extend this training throughout the country. This is consistent with our priority to help build local capacity, and therefore to make a sustainable impact.
More recently, we were made aware of a need for Mozambican expertise and training in the area of transfusion medicine. This is a critical area, as improving transfusion safety will help to decrease the risk of transmission of transfusion-related infections. We are now working with the Ministry of Health to provide longer term educational opportunities in this discipline for Mozambican physicians to train at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
We are also improving access to medical education resources for medical students and residents in Mozambique, by building an improved medical library and providing internet access within the Department of Pediatrics. We hope to then implement a curriculum for evidence-based practice and strengthen local capacity to do research.
