Global Health Program

Uganda

Vicki Modest, MD, teaches Ugandan anesthesia residents how to administer ultrasound-guided nerve blocks, allowing them to improve patient outcomes and comfort.

Our work in Uganda is a collaborative effort between Mass General and the Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital, the teaching hospital of the Mbarara University of Science and Technology. We focus on the education of Mbarara and Mass General residents, as well as outcome-based research.

Dr. Modest is improving postoperative pain control through recent technology and techniques. Her research collaboration with Ugandan clinicians examines the effectiveness of truncal blocks (transverse abdominal plane and paravertebral) for post-surgical analgesia. Through this partnership, she provides academic support and training for Ugandan anesthetists.

Paul Firth, MBChB, is developing a surgical outcomes database at Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital. The database tracks anesthetic, obstetrical, surgical and intensive care outcomes. Dr. Firth is also involved in a distance education project for anesthetic trainees. 

Ukraine

Gennadiy Fuzaylov, MD, takes trips to manage pediatric burns in Ukraine as part of a collaboration between Mass General and Shriners Hospitals for Children. His efforts involve working with public officials in Ukraine to formalize a program where physicians from Shriners visit Ukraine to teach, and Ukrainian physicians have the opportunity to come to Shriners to learn. Dr. Fuzaylov has also brought some of the most critically ill Ukrainian patients to Shriners for care.

Lena Dohlman, MD (now retired) supervises the department’s involvement in the Health Volunteers Overseas (HVO) Program. HVO is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the availability and quality of health care in low-income countries through the training and education of local health care providers.

Traveling fellowships are available through the Society for Education in Anesthesia (SEA) and HVO. Mass General residents have applied successfully to the SEA-HVO Traveling Fellowship every year for more than 15 years. The fellowship allows third-year anesthesia residents to spend a month teaching anesthesia at an HVO site, which have included countries in Africa, Southeast Asia and South America.

The SEA-HVO Traveling Fellowship exposes residents to a wide range of surgical pathologies and anesthetic techniques not commonly seen in the United States, as well as the realities and constraints of delivering health care in a resource-scarce environment. Fellows learn to communicate more effectively with people from different cultures and are challenged to be creative and flexible in problem solving. Fellows also serve as teachers of anesthesia and as role models for the anesthesia students at their program sites, contributing to the future safety of patients receiving anesthesia in developing nations. The program is active and growing, and Mass General is expected to continue to contribute talented and well-trained residents to this mutually beneficial effort.

Our physicians lead short-term clinical missions to various parts of the world to provide clinical expertise on treating a range of conditions, including:

• Burn injuries
• Cleft lip and palate deformities
• Head/neck tumors
• Microtia (absence of the outer ear)

Recent trips have addressed cleft palate in Vietnam and the Philippines.

We collaborate with several organizations that offer opportunities in global health, including:

• Mass General Center for Global Health
• American Society of Anesthesiologists Global Humanitarian Outreach
• Medical Missions for Children
• Partners in Health
• Project HOPE
• World Federation of Societies of Anesthesiologists

As a senior resident, Olof Viktorsdottir, MD, spent a month in Mthatha, South Africa, in 2011 after being selected for a SEA-HVO Traveling Fellowship. She spent the month teaching medical students how to use ultrasound in regional and ICU medicine. She also worked with colleagues in the operating room at Nelson Mandela Hospital, a large regional academic hospital. Lena Dohlman, MD, joined her for two weeks as a staff anesthesiologist and HVO Country Director of the South Africa program.

Haiti

In 2010, a team of Mass General clinicians traveled to Haiti to assist with earthquake relief efforts. The team included Dr. Firth, Neelakantan Sunder, MBBS, Akshay Dalal, MD and technician Tom Monaghan. The team cared for many patients with multiple traumatic injuries such as compound fractures, open wounds, compartment syndrome, quadriplegia and paraplegia. They established a triage system to save lives and limbs and to manage closed fractures and performed more than 140 anesthetic procedures in the operating room. The project was co-sponsored by Partners in Health and Project HOPE.

Indonesia

In 2005, Dr. Sunder, Dr. Dalal and Michael Fitzsimons, MD, worked with Project HOPE to assist tsunami survivors in Indonesia aboard the USNS Mercy.