Terry Vik, MD, a pediatric hematologist-oncologist at Indiana University School of Medicine and Riley Hospital for Children, will travel to Kenya later this summer as a Fulbright Scholar. His Fulbright award will enable him to train the first class of pediatric hematology-oncology fellows and conduct research.
Read MoreThe AMPATH Maternal, Newborn and Child Health team is implementing three interventions that seek to promote peer support and accountability: community clubs for pregnant and breastfeeding women (chamas), integrated group care for pregnant women and infants (Afya Jamii), and smartphones for use by Community Health Volunteers.
Read MoreIf you ask Grace Wandia, MD, what impressed her most about her two-month rotation at Eskenazi Hospital in Indianapolis, she will tell you about the environment. She was impressed by the environment inside the hospital which she found collegial, transparent and supportive. She was also impressed by the environment outside the hospital, which she found really, really cold.
Read MoreKenya’s First Lady, Margaret Kenyatta, launched the West Pokot Business Plan for the elimination of Mother-to-Child Transmission (eMTCT) of HIV earlier this month. The business plan is a roadmap that outlines how the county will dedicate more resources for eMTCT by 2021. AMPATH, with support from USAID, implements HIV care and treatment in West Pokot County, including eMTCT, and played a significant role in creating the roadmap.
Read MoreThe AMPATH partnership honors the memory and generous spirit of Eleanor (Ellie) Thurston who passed away on April 18 at the age of 89. Mrs. Thurston gave her initial gift to the Indiana University-Kenya partnership (now AMPATH) in 1999 to honor her husband, Max. . She wanted to make it possible for others who came from financially limited means to have the same sort of opportunity that Max had been given.
Read MoreWhen Joe Mamlin, MD, retired from Wishard Memorial Hospital in 2000, he and Sarah Ellen Mamlin made a one-year commitment to return to the IU-Kenya partnership in Eldoret that they had helped to establish a decade earlier. One year turned into 20, the IU-Kenya partnership became AMPATH, and this month Joe and Sarah Ellen returned to Indiana. Their departure from Kenya was commemorated with several celebrations to recognize their two decades of service.
Read MoreThe AMPATH surgery team has been using teleconference to improve surgical education. The team has introduced regular bilateral case conferences between Moi University and Indiana University in which surgical trainees at each location teach and learn from each other.
Read MoreJayne Njeri Kamau was an outstanding child life specialist in AMPATH’s Sally Test Child Life Program. Jane was returning to Eldoret from a pediatric cancer conference and was a passenger aboard the Ethiopian Airlines jet that crashed on March 10. Our AMPATH family mourns Jayne’s loss and offers condolences to her family, friends, co-workers, and the patients and families she served.
Read MoreThis month the AMPATH partnership hosted leaders from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The group visited an AMPATH rural health center in Mosoriot, where Dr. Joe Mamlin and Dr. Sylvester Kimaiyo led the tour. At the Moi University School of Medicine and Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, they saw clinical programs in action in as well as research that improves health care. Thank you to our NIH colleagues for supporting the AMPATH partnership!
Read MoreRachel Vreeman, MD, MS, is leaving Indiana for a new adventure in New York City.
In early February, Vreeman will become the Vice Chair for the Department of Health System Design and Global Health at AMPATH Consortium member Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Director of the Sinai Global Sites Network for the Arnhold Institute for Global Health.
Read MoreHelen Wu Li, a former Slemenda Scholar and third-year medical student, is spending this year as a Doris Duke Fellow in Kenya. Her research involves assessing the need for palliative care among surgical patients, but her experiences are also expanding her view of global health and the impact she can have in the future.
Read MoreBecause of your support and partnership, AMPATH is able to serve a population of 4.5 million Kenyans.
Read MoreAMPATH colleagues Laura Ruhl, MD, MPH, and Matt Turissini, MD, took very different paths to Kenya.
Along the way those paths converged to create a partnership that thrives on working to create an accessible health system in western Kenya while raising their young daughters to be global citizens.
Read MoreOn 12th December every year, the world marks the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) day. This year’s UHC day marks one year since the launch of the Government of Kenya’s Big Four Agenda that targets to achieve universal health coverage. UHC aims to make quality health accessible to all at a price affordable to them. Significant steps towards that goal have been made among county governments country-wide who have taken the initiative to launch their UHC plans.
Read MoreMore than one thousand trained AMPATH community health workers provide care and education throughout their own communities in western Kenya. Now this model is being used in two Indiana counties to improve infant mortality rates.
Read MoreLast month AMPATH took a big step toward a vision of making access to quality health care available for all. AMPATH teams started a pilot project going door-to-door in Turbo Sub-County, immediately northwest of Eldoret, to facilitate enrollment in an affordable national health insurance product to families, especially those with informal or no employment.
Read MoreJustus E. Ikemer is the project manager of Chama cha Mamatoto (mother-child groups). Justus loves working with mothers and seeing them benefit from various aspects of the Chamas program.
Read MoreSeven open heart surgeries were conducted last month at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH), representing the first successful open heart surgeries in Kenya conducted outside of Nairobi and Mombasa.
Read MoreAMPATH is working to improve the system for identifying and treating mental illness in Kenya. Jakob Simmank, a reporter from the German publication Zeit Online, recently travelled through western Kenya to report on efforts to address this challenge, including AMPATH’s work to remove the stigma of mental health through education.
Read MoreKyle Carpenter received a 2018 Fulbright Scholar Award to join AMPATH’s surgery team and develop western Kenya’s first registry of burn patients.
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