Global Health Program
Global health education is available to residents regardless of specialty through a variety of multidisciplinary events and the option to join an elective distinction track. Participants in the track attend a series of dinner meetings including didactic teaching and peer discussions which follow a rotating longitudinal curriculum; sessions are held every other month. Guest lecturers and faculty from across departments are invited as speakers.
Other events include an ongoing case discussion series with trainees in Tanzania (Mwananyamala Regional Hospital), skills workshops, and resident presentations. There are additional opportunities for cultural interchange through hosting medical students visiting from India (Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College). To complete the track and graduate with distinction, residents must attend two years of teaching sessions, as well as complete an international or underserved rotation and present a capstone talk to impart their experiences and teach the group.
The goals specific to our program are:
- Provide practical public health and clinical perspectives on the management of health issues and diseases in resource-poor settings
- Train residents to provide culturally competent, patient-centered care for disease management and health promotion
- Teach residents to recognize and address the impact of social, economic, environmental, and geopolitical factors on health disparities, both abroad and in the U.S
- Promote skills in population-based research and community-oriented primary care
- Inspire humility, compassion, and a service-oriented mindset in the next generation of physician leaders
Local partnerships include the Delaware Health Science Alliance, Delaware Academy of Family Physicians, Delaware Academy of Medicine, Nemours Children’s Health and Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University. Active global partnership sites include institutions in India, Dominican Republic, and Tanzania.
After pandemic disruption, the global health track at ChristianaCare was reimagined in its current form in April 2023 by Dr. Steven Duncan (Med-Peds Class of 2026), patterned after the track originally conceived by Dr. Christopher Prater (Med-Peds Class of 2014). Core faculty, past and present, include Drs. Lilian Msambichaka (Med-Peds), Michael Maguire (Med-Peds), Anna Filip (Family and Community Medicine), Karla Testa (Med-Peds), John Donnelly (Med-Peds), and Omar Khan (Family and Community Medicine).
As collaborative partners, Nemours Children’s offers a track dedicated to pediatric global health which is co-led by Drs. Justin Nichols (Med-Peds) and Elizabeth O’Donnell (Neonatology).
International Site
Residents in the past have visited:
- Dominican Republic in El Naranjito (Somos Amigos Clinic, Dr. Maguire)
- Haiti (CCHS)
- Gambia (Nemours)
- India (Nemours through TJU)
- Guatemala (Rural Healthcare)
- Cuidad Victoria, Mexico (Community for Children)
- San Miguel and Guanajuato City, Mexico (¡Bienvenidos a MedSpanish!)
- Nepal (Rural Healthcare)
- New Mexico (Indian Health Service)
- Peru (Medical Ministries International)
- Port-au-Prince, Haiti (Relief Efforts)
- Plymouth, England (Healthsystem Survey)
- Rwanda (Preventive Medicine and Education)
- Brownsville, TX (Community for Children)
- Uganda (Mulago National Referral Hospital) *Yale/Stanford Johnson & Johnson GH Scholar
- Zambia (Village of Hope, Orphanage)
Resident travel is not limited to those participating in the global health track, though connections are often made through track attendance and didactic sessions are designed to be preparatory.
Sample Topics from Curriculum
- Ethics and sustainability
- Maternal fetal health
- Sustainable Development Goals
- Cultural humility and ethnocentrism
- Disaster and emergency response
- Cost-conscious/low resource medicine
- Refugee and immigrant health
- Special US populations
- Diseases of poverty
- How-to: public health and research
- Tropical diseases and parasitology
- Social determinants of health
- Eradication programs
- HIV/AIDS
Distinction Track Goals and Requirements
Residents who complete the Global Health Track receive certification of distinction in global health training. The track is designed to take only 2 years to complete, but residents can choose to complete the requirements over the duration of their residency.
The goal of the Global Health Track is to provide an opportunity for a more focused education in global health for residents who many want to pursue:
- Clinical or academic career in global health
- Expand knowledge and experience of under-characterized and tropical diseases
- Career in serving low-income communities in the US
- Healthcare improvement for immigrants, refugees, travelers and underserved populations
- Increase competency in the care of a multicultural society
- Greater understanding of health care disparities and practical ways to address them
To complete certification in global health, participating residents must:
- Attend 12 sessions to complete the longitudinal didactic curriculum
- Dedicate 2-4 weeks of clinical elective time to rotations including:
- International destinations
- US underserved populations (refugee/immigrant clinics)
- Federally Qualified Health Centers
- Deliver a scholarly capstone presentation