International Engagement

About:

Cinterandes is a non-profit organization dedicated to the mission of providing operations to low income persons in underserved areas of Ecuador. Through the provision of free, high quality surgical and public health programs in the Andes, Coast, and Amazon regions, Cinterandes aims to increase the accessibility of high quality medical services. In pursuing this goal, Cinterandes prioritizes the principle of humanity through addressing basic unmet needs and improving capabilities whilst keeping their patients in proximity to their family and home environments.

Accomplishments: 

Since its founding in 1994, Cinterandes has been performing an average of 350 surgeries per year through its Mobile Surgery program, a mobile unit containing all the capacities of an Operating Room. This program served as a gateway to rural and underserved communities through building trust, credibility and acceptance, and also allowed Cinterandes to recognize the value of treating health within the greater context of human activity and need. As a result, Cinterandes expanded their mission to complete multiple family and community health programs targeting maternal and child care, vaccination, and nutrition. These programs and lessons have led Cinterandes to contribute to the overall improvement of health and human development across multiple levels in Ecuador.

Our Partnership:

Given our shared value of improving patient care, MUSC Global Surgery aspires to continue growing our relationship with Cinterandes. Already, several of our program members, including program director, Dr. Mike Mallah, have worked previously with the Mobile Surgery team to provide care to rural underserved communities. Moving forward, several medical students on the program board are working to establish research projects and shadowing time with the Mobile Surgery team. 

About:

PAACS is a non-denominational, multinational service organization that aims to tackle the issue of access to safe, timely, and affordable surgical, anesthesia, and obstetric care. Inaccessibility to high quality medical care is recognized by PAACS be primarily due to a lack of trained professionals. As a result, PAACS aims to train African physicians who are willing to stay in their countries to become surgeons. This training, which involves surgical and spiritual training, is carried out by board certified missionary surgeons in evangelical mission hospitals. PAACS believes that through these training programs, they will train surgeons who can provide excellent and compassionate care to the underserved as well as assist in correcting the physician to patient ratio.

Accomplishments: 

PAACS has 17 current training sites and 24 training programs across 11 countries including Kenya, Tanzania, Gabon, Ethiopia, Egypt, Madagascar, Togo, Burundi, Malawi, Cameroon, and Niger. Their programs have expanded to encompass General Surgery training, residency programs (Orthopedic Surgery, Pediatric Surgery, OBGYN, Neurosurgery, and Anesthesia), and fellowship programs (Cardiothoracic Surgery, Head and Neck Surgery, and Surgical Endoscopy). As of September 2023, PAACS has 144 graduates serving 22 countries and 147 current residents in training.

Our Partnership:

With our recognition of PAACS’s shared values of education and patient care, the Global Surgery Program is looking forward to all that we can achieve in unison. Currently, several medical students on our board are working on research projects to carry out next spring with PAACS.

About:

The London School of Economics (LSE) is a leading social science institution that aims to better global societies through supporting potential, advancing knowledge and understanding, and creating a more equitable, sustainable world. LSE aims to shape transformative learning, community, and ideas for impact.

William McInerney, PhD:

Dr. William McInerney is a research officer at the London School of Economics in the Centre for Women, Peace, and Security. He specializes in research on violence prevention, men and masculinities, education, and arts-based research. Dr. McInerney attended the University of Chapel Hill for his undergraduate studies, and he obtained his master's degree in Conflict Resolution at the University of Bradford in 2017, where he also served as a Rotary Peace Fellow. Dr. McInerney earned his doctorate of philosophy at the University of Cambridge in 2022. During his time at Cambridge, Dr. McInerney was Co-Chair of the Cambridge Peace and Education group.

Dr. McInerney is interested in exploring gender justice with a focus on gender-based violence and engaging boys and men; education with a focus on peace education and international development; and the arts with a focus on arts-based peace building and arts-based research methods. Dr. McInerney has many publications, with two of his most recent articles involving trans-disciplinary and creative approaches to gender violence prevention education involving boys and men. His current work includes co-leading the Story of the Hub for the UK Research Innovation (UKRI) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Gender, Justice, and Security Hub. This is an innovative meta-research project that aims to synthesize, analyze, and communicate findings across the projects' 39 research areas in 7 countries.

Our Partnership:

The London School of Economics (LSE) is a leading social science institution that aims to better global societies through supporting potential, advancing knowledge and understanding, and creating a more equitable, sustainable world. LSE aims to shape transformative learning, community, and ideas for impact.

About:

George Hospital serves as the only hospital for the Garden Route and Central-Karoo regions of South Africa. This institution provides district (Family Medicine), regional (Surgery, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, OBGYN, Psychiatry, and Orthopedics), and tertiary services (Maxillo-Facial, Urology ENT, Ophthamology, Oncology, and Neonatology). This facility readily receives patients from nearby district hospitals as they have many resources that others do not.

Accomplishments: 

The Emergency Centre manages 40,000-45,000 patients per year.

Our Partnership:

George Hospital aligns with our program’s value of patient care. We look forward to working more closely with this institution moving forward.

The Medical University of South Carolina’s Global Surgery Program conducted its first field visit alongside Virginia Commonwealth University’s (VCU) Department of Surgery and the Pan-African Academy of Christian Surgeons (PAACS) to re-think the current surgical resident case-logging system. PAACS oversees 23 resident training programs spanning 11 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Through MUSC's collaboration with PAACS and VCU, Dr. Mallah is aiming to develop a simple, education-focused, surgical resident case logging system to be used in all PAACS hospitals. Reliable tracking of surgical cases will help guide surgical education and improve future collaborations between PAACS, other low-middle income countries and high-income countries.

During the first four days of the trip the group attended the annual PAACS Basic Science Conference in  Namibia, Kenya, where there was faculty and resident representation from most of the 23 training sites.They focused their time at the conference on hearing from program directors and faculty.

Afterwards, they conducted site visits at three major PAACS-affiliated hospitals: Kijabe Hospital, Litein Hospital, and Tenwek Hospital. While at the hospitals we focused more on hearing from the surgical residents and observing the work-flow of the current case logging system.

Mike M. Mallah, M.D., Habib Rafka (M2 MUSC) and Ben Cassidy (M3 VCU) traveled to Kenya to work with PAACS on assessing their surgical resident case logging system with the goal to improve surgical education. 

International Presentation: Brackenhurst Conference, Brackenhurst, Kenya

Mike M. Mallah, M.D. and McKay Meyer (M2 MUSC) traveled to Uzbekistan to work with the Health Ministry on assessing the countries surgical capacity and needs. McKay was there for a one-month long engagement as part of the Global Health Flex track in the 2nd year of his medical school curriculum.