International Engagement

Key International Partners

About:

Cinterandes is a non-profit organization dedicated to the mission of providing operations to low income persons in underserved areas of Ecuador. Through the provision of free, high quality surgical and public health programs in the Andes, Coast, and Amazon regions, Cinterandes aims to increase the accessibility of high quality medical services. In pursuing this goal, Cinterandes prioritizes the principle of humanity through addressing basic unmet needs and improving capabilities whilst keeping their patients in proximity to their family and home environments.

Accomplishments:

Since its founding in 1994, Cinterandes has been performing an average of 350 surgeries per year through its Mobile Surgery program, a mobile unit containing all the capacities of an Operating Room. This program served as a gateway to rural and underserved communities through building trust, credibility and acceptance, and also allowed Cinterandes to recognize the value of treating health within the greater context of human activity and need. As a result, Cinterandes expanded their mission to complete multiple family and community health programs targeting maternal and child care, vaccination, and nutrition. These programs and lessons have led Cinterandes to contribute to the overall improvement of health and human development across multiple levels in Ecuador.

Our Partnership:

Given our shared value of improving patient care, MUSC Global Surgery aspires to continue growing our relationship with Cinterandes. Already, several of our program members, including program director, Dr. Mike Mallah, have worked previously with the Mobile Surgery team to provide care to rural underserved communities. Moving forward, several medical students on the program board are working to establish research projects and shadowing time with the Mobile Surgery team.

About:

PAACS is a non-denominational, multinational service organization that aims to tackle the issue of access to safe, timely, and affordable surgical, anesthesia, and obstetric care. Inaccessibility to high quality medical care is recognized by PAACS be primarily due to a lack of trained professionals. As a result, PAACS aims to train African physicians who are willing to stay in their countries to become surgeons. This training, which involves surgical and spiritual training, is carried out by board certified missionary surgeons in evangelical mission hospitals. PAACS believes that through these training programs, they will train surgeons who can provide excellent and compassionate care to the underserved as well as assist in correcting the physician to patient ratio.

Accomplishments:

PAACS has 17 current training sites and 24 training programs across 11 countries including Kenya, Tanzania, Gabon, Ethiopia, Egypt, Madagascar, Togo, Burundi, Malawi, Cameroon, and Niger. Their programs have expanded to encompass General Surgery training, residency programs (Orthopedic Surgery, Pediatric Surgery, OBGYN, Neurosurgery, and Anesthesia), and fellowship programs (Cardiothoracic Surgery, Head and Neck Surgery, and Surgical Endoscopy). As of September 2023, PAACS has 144 graduates serving 22 countries and 147 current residents in training.

Our Partnership:

With our recognition of PAACS’s shared values of education and patient care, the Global Surgery Program is looking forward to all that we can achieve in unison. Currently, several medical students on our board are working on research projects to carry out next spring with PAACS.

About:

The London School of Economics (LSE) is a leading social science institution dedicated to fostering potential, expanding knowledge and understanding, and contributing to a more balanced and sustainable world. LSE strives to shape impactful learning, collaboration, and ideas for meaningful change.

William McInerney, PhD:

Dr. William McInerney is a research officer at the London School of Economics in the Centre for Women, Peace, and Security. He specializes in research on violence prevention, men and masculinities, education, and arts-based research. Dr. McInerney attended the University of Chapel Hill for his undergraduate studies, and he obtained his master's degree in Conflict Resolution at the University of Bradford in 2017, where he also served as a Rotary Peace Fellow. Dr. McInerney earned his doctorate of philosophy at the University of Cambridge in 2022. During his time at Cambridge, Dr. McInerney was Co-Chair of the Cambridge Peace and Education group.

Dr. McInerney is interested in exploring gender justice with a focus on gender-based violence and engaging boys and men; education with a focus on peace education and international development; and the arts with a focus on arts-based peace building and arts-based research methods. Dr. McInerney has many publications, with two of his most recent articles involving trans-disciplinary and creative approaches to gender violence prevention education involving boys and men. His current work includes co-leading the Story of the Hub for the UK Research Innovation (UKRI) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Gender, Justice, and Security Hub. This is an innovative meta-research project that aims to synthesize, analyze, and communicate findings across the projects' 39 research areas in 7 countries.

Our Partnership

About:

George Hospital serves as the only hospital for the Garden Route and Central-Karoo regions of South Africa. This institution provides district (Family Medicine), regional (Surgery, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, OBGYN, Psychiatry, and Orthopedics), and tertiary services (Maxillo-Facial, Urology ENT, Ophthamology, Oncology, and Neonatology). This facility readily receives patients from nearby district hospitals as they have many resources that others do not.

Accomplishments:

The Emergency Centre manages 40,000-45,000 patients per year.

Our Partnership:

George Hospital aligns with our program’s value of patient care. We look forward to working more closely with this institution moving forward.

In the Field

During the inaugural year, the Global Surgery Program was able to support travel to three international locations to attend and present at global surgery conferences and engage with hospital leaders through a $25,000 pilot grant, awarded to Mike M. Mallah, M.D. and $2000 travel grants awarded to the medical students thanks to the funding from the MUSC Center for Global Health.

trip to Namibia The Medical University of South Carolina’s Global Surgery Program conducted its first field visit alongside Virginia Commonwealth University’s (VCU) Department of Surgery and the Pan-African Academy of Christian Surgeons (PAACS) to re-think the current surgical resident case-logging system. PAACS oversees 23 resident training programs spanning 11 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Through MUSC's collaboration with PAACS and VCU, Dr. Mallah is aiming to develop a simple, education-focused, surgical resident case logging system to be used in all PAACS hospitals. Reliable tracking of surgical cases will help guide surgical education and improve future collaborations between PAACS, other low-middle income countries and high-income countries.

During the first four days of the trip the group attended the annual PAACS Basic Science Conference in Namibia, Kenya, where there was faculty and resident representation from most of the 23 training sites.They focused their time at the conference on hearing from program directors and faculty.

Afterwards, they conducted site visits at three major PAACS-affiliated hospitals: Kijabe Hospital, Litein Hospital, and Tenwek Hospital. While at the hospitals we focused more on hearing from the surgical residents and observing the work-flow of the current case logging system.

trip to Kenya

Mike M. Mallah, M.D., Habib Rafka (M2 MUSC) and Ben Cassidy (M3 VCU) traveled to Kenya to work with PAACS on assessing their surgical resident case logging system with the goal to improve surgical education.

International Presentation: Brackenhurst Conference, Brackenhurst, Kenya

trip to Uzbekistan

Mike M. Mallah, M.D. and McKay Meyer (M2 MUSC) traveled to Uzbekistan to work with the Health Ministry on assessing the countries surgical capacity and needs. McKay was there for a one-month long engagement as part of the Global Health Flex track in the 2nd year of his medical school curriculum.

International Training Opportunities

Winter 2024

Medical students Dareen Mosa and Laith Safadi from Jordan University of Science and Technology recently completed their rotation in the Department of Surgery. They both gained valuable experience and knowledge through rotating with general and transplant surgery, shadowing in the ICU and OR. This experience highlights the importance of bidirectionalitythe MUSC Global Surgery Program offers.

Michael Deal, M.D. PGY-3, completed his two month global surgery rotation. “The people of George, South Africa became my family and the city became my home during my two month global surgery rotation. I grew more personally, professionally, and clinically than I ever anticipated. Thank you to Dr. Mallah, the MUSC Global Surgery Program, and the MUSC Department of Surgery! - Michael Deal, M.D.

Dr. Deal is the fourth resident to complete this international rotation. Prior residents during our inaugural year include Arjun Patel, M.D., Allison Frederick, M.D., and Daniel Daniel Akyeampong, M.D.

Medical Student McKay Meyers travels to Ecuador; participates with our global surgery program partnership with Cinterandes

Our Global Surgery Program partner, Cinterandes, recently was in Manglaralto, Ecuador, providing surgical care for many members of the community in collaboration with Futuro Valdivia. McKay Meyer, a fourth-year student in our program, had the opportunity to learn first hand about mobile surgery.

Medical Student Sydney Bertram traveled to George South Africa

Medical student Sydney Bertram divided her time between assisting in the OR on outreach missions and working as a sub-intern in George. In George, her duties included pre-rounding, staffing consults in the ER, and second-assisting in surgeries. On outreach days, she traveled with the medical team to referring hospitals and performed surgeries and endoscopies, easing access for patients with limited transportation. In her downtime, she explored the region’s beaches and hiking, bonding with medical students and physicians from South Africa and around the world. Sydney says the experience was a great introduction to the rewards and challenges of global surgery!

Stellenbosch University, Capetown South Africa

Georgia Lydon was awarded a Center for Global Health Student & Trainee Travel Grant in the spring of 2023 to pursue a project with Stellenbosch University in Cape Town, South Africa in 2023.

She was the first of many students and residents to engage in partnership between MUSC Global Surgery and Stellenbosch University.

Georgia worked under the direction of Dr. Kathryn Chu, a internationally renowned researcher and Director of their Global Surgery Program. Georgia was in Cape Town for a three month period. She worked with the Center for Global Surgery on a combined clinical/research experience.

Bidirectional Engagement

2 African LMIC co-authors on book chapters (one from South Africa, one from Cameroon)
2 students from Jordan University of Science and Technology recently completed their rotation in the Department of Surgery.