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Wrapping Up Surgery

Wrapping Up Surgery

Dr. Nick Perencevich (Dartmouth ’69) was the first American surgeon on the ground in Rwanda when the Human Resources for Health program got underway this past summer. He has been a trailblazer here and reflects on his time there as he prepares to leave.

Dr. Dorey Glenn, MD, uses a tablet to show some of the medical students and residents at King Faisal Hospital in Kigali, Rwanda how bilitool.com can help quickly assess the health of a jaundiced newborn under their care.]

Changes and Checkboxes in Kigali

Instituting major changes at King Faisel Hospital in Kigali, Rwanda can be a slow and sometimes frustrating process. But Dartmouth’s Dr. Dorey Glenn, who’s working in the hospital’s pediatric department as a faculty member with the HRH program, is learning how to get things done.

Dorey Glenn, MD and The Kid That Coded

Dorey Glenn, MD and The Kid That Coded

This never happens. Pediatric patients don’t get airlifted anywhere in Rwanda, but nevertheless: there’s the Air Force helicopter, idling behind King Faisal Hospital in the heart of Kigali after its trip from Butare Hospital, about 75 miles south of the capital.

Lisa Adam MED '90 working with colleagues in Rwanda.

What Do You Make of This?

Together with her first-year resident, Theoneste, and fourth-year medical student, Felix, Geisel School of Medicine Professor Lisa Adams, MD, works up a newly arrived patient on the infectious disease ward at the University Teaching Hospital (CHUK) in Kigali, Rwanda.

Leading by Example

Overall the work here is going very well – needless to say I find it incredibly rewarding and am fortunate enough to be working alongside outstanding colleagues, both Rwandan and US. I am working at the main teaching hospital in Kigali, spending time in clinical teaching conferences, rounding on the wards (focusing on those patients with TB and HIV, of which there are many, about 40%) and in the HIV clinic.

Making the Rounds in Rwanda

Making the Rounds in Rwanda

In Kigali, Rwanda, the visiting HRH program doctors are working to build an appreciation among their local faculty colleagues of the importance of hands-on teaching. The best way to do so is by example, which is why doctors like Dartmouth’s Dr. Lisa Adams attends daily ward rounds with residents and medical students.

A Culture Change

The Human Resources for Health (HRH) Program faculty from Dartmouth are now six weeks into their work here in Rwanda. Spread across a handful of teaching hospitals, the physicians have been partnered with local faculty “twins,” and after some initial work developing resident rotations built on care team model and revising resident curriculum, they are now busy mentoring and teaching residents as well as medical students.

Rwanda, August 17

Meet Dr. Jean-Luc Nkurikiyimfura. His lengthy last name means “striving for excellence” in Kinyarwanda. To everyone’s relief, the amiable young Rwandan doctor prefers to go by Dr. Jean-Luc. As director of the HIV out-patient clinic at CHUK (Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Kigali), the main teaching hospital in Kigali, he is a very busy man.