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 Introduction |
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The Department of Family Medicine’s faculty members have a wide range of experience, interests, and involvement in international medicine. Our faculty members have practiced medicine in nearly every continent other than Antarctica. Several have specialized training and/or advanced degrees in medical staff planning, cold weather medicine, tropical medicine, and field operations. Utilizing the principles of family medicine, they have practiced medicine, or pursued specialized training in Panama, Iraq, Kuwait, Somalia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, to name a few countries.
In addition, we have several active programs in the international arena as outlined below, including the Honduras/Shoulder to Shoulder Program, the Pitt–Africa/WONCA Program, joint observership residency experiences with Kobe Japan, and others. Our Center for Primary Care Community-Based Research is rapidly becoming internationally known for the quality of its research in health services delivery.
Several of our faculty members are active members of the World Organization of National Assemblies and Congresses of Family Medicine (WONCA). We are rapidly developing our expertise internationally for assisting leaders in Family Medicine to establish rigorous training programs, methods of certification and evaluation, and working to assist them with developing the specialty in their countries as it was developed here nearly 40 years ago.
The Department continues to develop new and exciting programs and plans to extend its expertise and influence across the globe, seeking to identify opportunities for the application of technologies to developing nations seeking to upgrade their “general practitioners” into fully trained and specialized family physicians.
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| Honduras Program |
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Shoulder to Shoulder is a community-oriented primary care project in San Jose del Negrito, Honduras. The programs "brigades" consist of physicians, nurses, medical students, residents and others with special skills and visit Hondoras twice a year. They serve the people of San Jose through medical care and through various projects including beginning water filtration, analyzing the need for better chimneys and ventilation, improving nutrition, and community education. A new clinic building was constructed and usually 80 to 150 patients are seen per day on a brigade.
There is a board of community leaders that oversee the project in Honduras and a board of interested people here in Pittsburgh. The project has grown and supports itself financially through donations.
The board is incorporated in the name of Shoulder to Shoulder Pittsburgh/San Jose, Inc. and has applied for nonprofit status through the IRS. It functions through the Department of Family Medicine under the leadership of Dr. Mark Meyer, Dr. Randall Kolb, and Dr. William Markle. (Web site: http://www.shouldertoshoulderpgh.org/) |
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Shouler to Shoulder Program
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| Pitt–Africa Program |
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A social, economic, and health crisis is occurring in Southern Africa as well as the United States from the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The most adversely affected in both countries are young adults between the ages of 15 and 25 years of age, especially women and girls. Several years ago, Drs. Jeannette E. South-Paul and Janine E. Janosky decided to respond to the medical challenge of HIV/AIDS by initiating collaborative research into the impact of this disease on family and community with physicians and scientists from three of the most severely affected countries—Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The premise of this work is that much of the knowledge and skills of Family Medicine can be mobilized to: (1) facilitate effective prevention and management of HIV/AIDS and (2) assist in building community health capacity in the most affected countries of Southern Africa. The experience gained in health care delivery to the largest racial minority population in the greater Pittsburgh area, African Americans, can be used as a prototype for research to define ways to alleviate the effect of this disease on the targeted countries.
Members of the Department of Family Medicine have exchanged visits with physicians and scientists from three of the most severely affected countries—Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Several collaborative projects are in the planning stages.
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