In some parts of the world, eight pediatricians can make a huge difference.
The eight pediatricians in the first graduating class of the Partnership for Eritrea (PFE) program, a collaboration of GW’s Medical Center, Physicians for Peace and the Eritrean government, more than doubled the East African nation’s total number of pediatricians. On Dec. 5, they graduated alongside 31 medical students, the first graduating class of Eritrea’s Orotta School of Medicine.
“The graduation was historic,” says Huda Ayas, M.H.S.A. ’93, M.B.A. ’98, Ed.D. ’06, executive director of the Medical Center’s International Medicine Programs.
“It was incredible to watch a country whose whole infrastructure was destroyed build a medical school and then graduate a class of doctors and pediatricians,” she says. “They have truly made something out of nothing.”
Eritrea, which gained its independence from Ethiopia in 1993, has experienced a severe shortage of physicians, with fewer than five physicians per 100,000 people. To address the shortage, Eritrea’s Ministry of Health opened the Orotta School of Medicine in 2003 and created PFE.
“GW is becoming an ambassador to Eritrea,” says Dr. Ayas. “We build the relationships, the bridges to the people. What we are doing is not political — it’s educational. We are dealing with human lives.”
Dr. Ayas attended the graduation ceremony with John Williams, M.D. ’79, Ed.D. ’96, provost and vice president for health affairs; James Scott, dean of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences; Charles Macri, professor of obstetrics and gynecology; and representatives of Physicians for Peace and PFE.
The program would not have been possible without the support of Saleh Meky, the Eritrean minister of health, who died just weeks before the graduation ceremony, says Haile Mezghebe, director of post-graduate medical education at PFE.
In his honor, the graduates called themselves the Saleh Meky Class of 2009, says Dr. Mezghebe, and remembered him as someone “who epitomized the profession’s highest precepts and ideals and whose influence went far beyond any personal achievement by delivering a profoundly positive effect on the health care profession.”
The 200-bed Orotta Pediatric Hospital, where members from GW’s Department of Pediatrics serve as visiting faculty and provide clinical supervision, has already seen a decrease in illness and death rates.
Even greater achievements appear likely in 2010, when PFE will graduate its first class of surgery residents and will launch a residency program in internal medicine. The first class of obstetrics and gynecology residents is scheduled to graduate in 2011 and will be prepared to help fix what is recognized as Eritrea’s most pressing health problem – a maternal mortality rate of 630 per 100,000 births (compared with the United States’ rate of eight per 100,000).
Dr. Williams remains optimistic. “The ceremony signified a tremendous accomplishment for the entire state of Eritrea, which now embraces a new generation of physicians who will continue to make the Eritrean people stronger and healthier,” he says. “That GW was a part of this incredible endeavor makes me very proud.”