Global Women's Health Clinical Work
The Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Illinois at Chicago has a commitment to women's health not just in Chicago, but globally as well. Please read on about some of our global health clinical work.
Drs. Megan App, Sherry Nordstrom, and Tracy Irwin travel to Bolivia on surgical missions, Dr. Megan App went to Congo as part of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, and Drs. Bryna Harwood and Julie Chor have both traveled to India in collaboration with Dr. Stacie Geller.
Examples of clinical work
India
Stacie Geller, PhD and Bryna Harwood, MD, MS work with the Jawaharial Nehru Medical College (JNMC) toward improving maternal health and the development of a family planning curriculum and training program. Julie Chor, MD, currently a Family Planning fellow at UIC, recently went to India to help develop their curriculum on Family Planning. Dr. Chor also visited primary health centers in rural villages in India to learn more about their services and their educational needs in relation to family planning.
Bolivia
In conjunction with the MIMA Foundation, three of our physicians, Drs. Sherry Nordstrom, Megan App, and Tracy Irwin, have traveled to Bolivia to provide gynecologic surgery services to people who would otherwise be unable to access health care. This June, Drs. Nordstrom and Irwin, a resident and a medical student will return to Bolivia to continue our work there. MIMA Foundation is a non-profit organization that provides medical and surgical care to indigent people in Bolivia.
Democratic Republic of Congo
Megan App, MD MPH traveled to the DRC with the Harvard Humanitarian Mission. She performed one or two surgeries a day, mostly repairing fistulas caused by rape. She also gave lectures to physicians-in-training and saw patients in the clinics.