As part of its education and training function, the Division welcomes Global Health Leadership Fellows, who work for two years on projects that advance the Division’s mission. As part of the program, Fellows also complete degree or certificate programs in global health.
Global Health Leadership Fellows
Modern-day slavery. Post-conflict zone health system collapse. What can physicians do to address these and other global health problems?
The Division of Global Health and Human Rights has been offering a two-year global health fellowship for residency-trained physicians since July of 2006. Applications are welcomed from physicians all specialties and 1 to 2 are admitted annually. The fellowship focus is to develop global health leaders in a particular area of concentration. The two-year training program includes a customized combination of field work, clinical participation at MGH, and didactics such as advanced degrees in public health or public policy, tropical medicine, and research mentorship.
Chief Thomas Burke, MD, notes, “We wish to see our physicians have significant impact in global health, whether through practicing medicine, or advocating for health systems change in resource-poor settings. These fellows are training to become leaders in their chosen career path of a specific global health discipline.” The current fellows are listed below:
Michele Montandon
Michele Montandon has been a fellow in the Division of Global Health and Human Rights since August 2011. She has her Medical Degree from the University of California-San Francisco, with an Area of Concentration in Global Health. She completed residency training in Family Medicine at the Contra Costa Regional Medical Center. During her training, she volunteered clinically and conducted HIV research in Kenya and Uganda. After residency, she worked with Médecins Sans Frontières MSF (Doctors without Borders) in Lagos, Nigeria. Her interests internationally include medical education and building human resources for health, particularly the training of highly skilled general practitioners and physician leaders for work in rural, physician-poor areas. Through the fellowship, she has been involved in medical education programs in Juba, South Sudan and western Kenya.
Jeff Pierce
Jeff Pierce, MD, is a family physician based in northern California. A native of South Texas, Pierce completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Texas–Pan American and his medical degree at Baylor College of Medicine. After completing his training at the Santa Rosa Family Medicine residency in 2007, he worked in Lesotho for a year as part of the Baylor College of Medicine Pediatric AIDS Corps. Since then he has divided his time between working in northern California and working as the Director of Education for World Altering Medicine, an NGO mainly focused on helping a community in central Malawi. In addition to his experience in southern Africa, Pierce has worked in Kenya, South Sudan, Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru, and the Philippines. His medical interests include high risk obstetrics, HIV, and tropical medicine, and he is dedicated to addressing health care needs in the developing world primarily through the teaching of medical practitioners.
Kathleen O' Brien
Kathleen is an Emergency Medicine trained physician from Arizona who comes to Boston to further pursue her goal of bringing point of care ultrasound to resource poor areas, specifically in the developing world. She finished residency in emergency medicine at University of Arizona in 2009, then worked in a busy community ED in Flagstaff, AZ serving primarily the Navajo nation for 3 years before returning to University of Arizona for a fellowship in Emergency Ultrasound in 2012. Kathleen has spent time pursuing a variety of medical projects in Nicaragua, Honduras, Haiti, Argentina, India, Nepal (three times), Rwanda, and has traveled the world extensively for pleasure. Professional interests include Mexican/US border medicine and ultrasound in resource poor areas. Personal interests are many and include rock, ice, and alpine climbing, trail running, anusara yoga, and remote road trips out west on her Enduro motorcycle.
Paula Roy-Burman
Paula Roy-Burman completed her undergraduate studies at the University of California at Berkeley and obtained her medical degree from the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California with an emphasis on community health. She completed residency in Internal Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, where she is currently an attending in the Division of Hospital Medicine. Roy-Burman’s academic interests include medical education, healthcare delivery in resource limited environments and transitions of care. In addition to her work in western Kenya, she has had experience in Honduras, Senegal, Thailand and Tanzania in both clinical and educational capacities, with focuses on resource limitations, crossing cultural barriers, refugee health and training of medical professionals, respectively.
PAST GLOBAL HEALTH LEADERSHIP FELLOWS
Melody Eckardt, MD, MPH
Melody Eckardt has been a fellow in the Division of Global Health and Human Rights since 2009. She is also faculty at Boston Medical Center where she is an attending physician in obstetrics and gynecology and is the care provider in charge of development for the Women’s Refugee Center at Boston Medical Center. She has her MPH from Harvard School of Public Health and her Medical Degree from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Her interests internationally include refugee health, maternal ultrasound in resource poor settings, and antenatal and emergency obstetrical care to decrease maternal morbidity and mortality in the developing world. Dr. Eckardt has previously worked in Nepal, Southern Sudan, India, Pakistan and Romania. She was also an ob/gyn in a group practice for 7 years at South Shore Hospital.
Maya Fehling, MD
Maya Fehling has been a fellow in the Division of Global Health and Human Rights since June 2010. Trained in pediatrics, Dr. Fehling studied in Germany and worked in Switzerland and France. She is particularly interested in child health in developing countries, with a focus on emergency and newborn care and nutrition. Dr. Fehling has worked for several NGOs, including Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) in countries like Ecuador, Ghana, Nigeria, Cape Verde and Uganda. Dr. Fehling has contributed to Division efforts in Uganda and Southern Sudan.
Keri Cohn, MD
Dr. Keri Cohn has been a fellow in the Division of Global Health and Human Rights since 2010. After completing her residency at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Dr. Cohn worked with Médecins Sans Frontières as the chief expatriate physician in the northern rebel region of the Cote d’Ivoire. She received her Diploma of Tropical Medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and then completed a 5 year intensive fellowship combining Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Pediatric Emergency Medicine at Children’s Hospital Boston. She is an instructor at Harvard Medical School and was awarded the 2010 Pediatric Infectious Disease Society Burtis Burr Breese Award for her tuberculosis research in Haitian migrant children living in the Dominican Republic. Dr. Cohn has been involved with the Division's work in Liberia and Uganda, and helped shape the Initiative to End Child Malnutrition.
Wendy Macias Konstantopolous, MD, MPH
Wendy Macias Konstantopolous is an emergency physician at MGH. Dr. Macias Konstantopoulos was a Global Health Leadership Fellow from 2007-2009, during which time she completed an MPH at Harvard School of Public Health, represented the Division at the UN's 2008 Global Forum Against Human Trafficking and undertook research for the Division's Initiative to End Slavery. She is currently faculty at the Division, assisting in the design of Phase Two of the Division's trafficking work. Dr. Macias Konstantopoulos has also worked with the International Organization on Migration Counter-Trafficking Unit in Indonesia.
Brett Nelson, MD, MPH, DTM&H
Brett Nelson was a pediatric Global Health Leadership Fellow at the Division from 2008-2009. In his capacity as fellow, he led efforts in developing pediatric and newborn care and training in Monrovia, Liberia. Dr. Nelson's training includes MD and MPH degrees from Johns Hopkins, with MPH concentrations in humanitarian assistance and human rights, and advanced diploma training in tropical medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Dr. Nelson has been involved in pediatric care, academic research and consultancy in a dozen conflict-affected areas while working for a variety of international organizations.
Mark Bisanzo, MD
Mark Bisanzo completed his residency at the Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency (HAEMR) in 2006. He spent the following three years as faulty at the University of Connecticut. During his 2009/2010 fellowship, he worked with Nyakibale Hospital and the Global Emergency Care Collaborative (GECC) on the construction of one of the first district hospital emergency care centers on the African continent. A major focus of his work was training a cadre of Ugandan nurses in order to provide the human resource capacity to run the new center in a high quality and sustainable fashion.
Jacob Chapman, MD, MPH
Jacob Chapman completed his residency at the Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency (HAEMR) in June 2008. He is an emergency physician at MGH. He received his MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health in June 2009. His previous international work has focused on capacity-building and development. He has worked with Partners in Health on a number of projects in Chiapas, Mexico. Most recently, he completed a health needs assessment in Liberia, in conjunction with the Liberian Ministry of Health, and he has also worked on the Maternal and Infant Health Initiative in Zambia. Currently, Jacob's focus is to help develop a world-leading emergency care training program, by and for, Caribbean health care providers.
fELLOWSHIP aPPLICATION pROCESS
To apply to our Global Health Leadership Fellows program, please send your CV, a letter of intent (700 words or fewer), and 2 letters of reference to tfburke@partners.org. The application deadline for fellowships starting in July of 2013 is October 15, 2012. Fellows are selected on a rolling basis; thus, early submission of application materials is encouraged. Please contact the Division at 617-643-4294 with any questions.
OTHER GLOBAL HEALTH TRAINING
In addition to Global Health Leadership Fellows, the Division works with medical residents, medical students and undergraduate students at Harvard and elsewhere that have an interest in global health. For example, during the past year, several medical residents participated in Division projects in South Sudan. The Division also hosts 2-3 global health interns each summer.
