University of Minnesota Joins AMPATH Consortium

The University of Minnesota (UMN) joins the AMPATH Consortium and becomes the 17th member university in the U.S., Canada and Europe currently working within the AMPATH Global network of partnerships.

UMN, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, will initially engage in the AMPATH Kenya partnership, but hopes to extend its engagement to AMPATH’s partnerships in Ghana, Mexico and Nepal over time.

“The University of Minnesota has a long history of global engagement with many global health centers and programs,” said Bill Stauffer, MD, MSPH, FASTMH, professor in the division of infectious diseases and international medicine. Dr. Stauffer recently served as the AMPATH Kenya executive site director. “The UMN has extensive global infectious diseases expertise as well as one of the most extensive formal online and in-person global health medical training programs and networks.” 

Initial AMPATH efforts will focus on building clinical capacity in infectious diseases with future opportunities to assist with building a Kenya-led clinical infectious diseases service and lending support to health policy, public health, epidemiology, biostatistics, and One Health (veterinary) activities as requested by global partners. The UMN has extensive expertise in Global Infectious Diseases with work in many countries including East Africa, particularly Uganda, Tanzania and other sites in Kenya.

In addition, UMN will make opportunities available to AMPATH faculty and trainees to access both in-person and on-line learning. “The AMPATH relationship will be led by the Department of Infectious Diseases and International Medicine. The Global Medicine Department which has graduated more than 150 medical residents from its Global Medicine Pathway will also participate. Additionally, the UMN Global Medicine Course is one of 17 accredited courses in the world and the only course taught in collaboration with the CDC and has had >1500 participants since beginning in 2005,” Dr. Stauffer continued.

“The University of Minnesota’s extensive global health expertise will be a tremendous asset to our AMPATH global partners,” said Adrian Gardner, MD, MPH, executive director of the AMPATH Consortium and director of the Indiana University Center for Global Health. “We are eager to share both the clinical and educational resources that UMN offers. It’s a bonus that we can continue to work with Bill and other AMPATH veterans.”

Dr. Stauffer along with Meredith Kavalier, MD, an assistant professor in the division of infectious diseases and international medicine, will be key faculty leaders for the partnership.  In addition, they will be joined by other key faculty including Lu’aie Kailani, MD, who served as medicine team lead at AMPATH Kenya, and is currently infectious disease staff at HealthPartners/Region’s Hospital Saint Paul, and Jenny Morgan, MD, former oncology team lead at AMPATH Kenya, and now assistant professor of medicine, hematology, oncology and transplantation at UMN.

UMN anticipates sending a limited number of residents and fellows to Kenya each year while welcoming global trainees to Minnesota for both clinical rotations and the Global Medicine Course.

In addition to UMN, the AMPATH Consortium includes:

  • Brown University 

  • Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin 

  • Duke University 

  • Indiana University (AMPATH Global Secretariat) 

  • Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine 

  • Linköping University (Sweden) 

  • Mount Sinai 

  • NYU Langone Health 

  • Purdue University 

  • Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health 

  • Temple University

  • University of Alberta 

  • University of California San Francisco 

  • University of Louisville 

  • University of Toronto 

  • University of Virginia 

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