MedPeds Global Community Health Track
The UIC MedPeds Global Community Health Track is a unique opportunity for resident physicians to expand their perspective on disparity both locally and globally. Through the UIC Center for Global Health, residents can choose to apply to one of two graduate-training certificate programs designed to enhance residents’ global health competencies, foster mentorship, and provide formalized education.
Learn more about us via the following link:
Center for Global Health Graduate Program
MedPeds Global Health Philosophy
We believe in training our residents to use a collaborative effort and public health approach to participate in sustainable and evidence-based global health projects. Health disparities exist everywhere – from the corners of Chicago to the valleys of Africa. This longitudinal curriculum will push our residents to practice medicine from more of a public health and global perspective. Through collaboration with health professionals from other departments and fields, residents will develop skill sets enabling them to become patient advocates and health care proponents no matter where and in what setting they practice.
After our project in the Dominican Republic completed, the Med Peds Residency Global Health Track began to search for a new potential global health site. Through the UIC Center for Global Health, Peru was recommended as a potential site due to the following:
- The need for improved access to healthcare in various regions in this country
- We had a potential partnership in the area of Iquitos, Peru through work being done by the Peruvian American Medical Society: Selva in Action chapter
In April 2016, our UIC team traveled to Peru to perform our initial site visit. We finalized our partnerships in Iquitos, Peru in April of 2017. Our goal is to work alongside Selva in Action to improve health services through the implementation of the COPE quality improvement program. Recently we performed a needs assessment by interviewing more than 100 community members in order to identify local health priorities during our March 2018 trip. We identified malaria, clean water sources, diarrheal illnesses, and women’s health as important topics to the communities. In 2019 we gathered more information through quality improvement surveys of both community members and medical expedition staff. Women’s health continued to be an important topic identified, and our 2020 trip had plans on improving HPV vaccination rates in the area; however due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this project has currently been put on hold due to international travel restrictions.
UIC MedPeds, in collaboration with UIC Dept of Family Medicine, Dept of Medicine, Northwestern University, Peace Corps Dominican Republic, and Clinica de Familia La Romana, is involved in the Peace Care project in Guaymate, Dominican Republic.
Through recommendations of Peace Corps Dominican Republic, the municipal of Guaymate, located in eastern DR was chosen as the collaborative community. The site was chosen with the following considerations:
- The municipal and its surrounding bateyes have a need for improved health care capacity
- The local community desired a collaborative relationship
- A Peace Corps Volunteer who has expressed interest in working with Peace Care is currently in place in Guaymate and is well-integrated within the community
- Clinica de Familia in La Romana is a primary care clinic actively involved in Guaymate and the bateye communities, and its staff has experience working with U.S. academic centers and is well-versed in conducting research
- Guaymate is a rural municipal with a population os 17,000. Over 40% of the population is from the 30+ bateyes – housing communities for sugar cane field workers – located around Guaymate
Learn more about our trips:
A team from UIC traveled to Guaymate in March, 2013 to jumpstart the project and to formalize our partnerships. A Community Advisory Board was formed to assessment the health needs of the community. A second site visit was conducted in Sept, 2013. Focused group discussions were done in the community and the surrounding bateyes to learn of the health problems in the region. In March, 2014, we returned to Guaymate to train the hospital staff on doing quality improvement measures. Our project was completed in March 2015.
March, 2013 – Trip Report
September, 2013 – Trip Report
March, 2014 – Trip Report
September, 2014 – Trip Report
March, 2015 – Trip Report
