Author: Amanda

Vin Gupta, MD, a fellow in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at BWH, pens a piece for The Lancet Global Health Blog highlighting the need for a multinational response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

He writes: “In our globalised world, a collaborative approach is crucial, as communicable diseases know no borders. While the ethos of recent statements put forward by the WHO, the UN, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advocates for just such a response, a closer look suggests that at least in recent times, realist tendencies permeate initial responses to global pandemics. Ultimately, how we respond initially will dictate the severity of human and economic losses incurred.”

Read the full post on The Lancet Global Health Blog.

BWH has a rich legacy of global health work in partnership with a number of sister institutions, including Partners In Health (PIH) and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).

Three outstanding nurse leaders recently came together to discuss the importance of nursing in global health efforts. Sheila Davis, DNP, ANP-BC, FAAN, Chief Nursing Officer at PIH and staff member in the BWH Division of Global Health Equity; Patricia Daoust, RN, MSN, Chief Nursing Officer at SEED Global Health and Associate Director for the MGH Center for Global Health; and Julie Anathan, RN, MPH, International Nursing Coordinator at the MGH Center for Global Health and Deputy Chief Nursing Officer at SEED have extensive experience in global health work, both nationally and internationally. Continue reading “Global Nurses Lead Across Institutions” →

BWH has a rich legacy of global health work in partnership with a number of sister institutions, including Partners In Health (PIH) and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).

Three outstanding nurse leaders recently came together to discuss the importance of nursing in global health efforts. Sheila Davis, DNP, ANP-BC, FAAN, Chief Nursing Officer at PIH and staff member in the BWH Division of Global Health Equity; Patricia Daoust, RN, MSN, Chief Nursing Officer at SEED Global Health and Associate Director for the MGH Center for Global Health; and Julie Anathan, RN, MPH, International Nursing Coordinator at the MGH Center for Global Health and Deputy Chief Nursing Officer at SEED have extensive experience in global health work, both nationally and internationally. Continue reading “Global Nurses Lead Across Institutions” →

In honor of National Physician Assistant (PA) Week earlier this month, Jennifer Wall, MSPAS, PA-C, founder and president of the Africa Relief Burn Program and recipient of the BWH PA Services Grant, shared her experience and challenges working in the village of Nkhoma in Malawi, Africa.

With only 2 percent of the southeast African country having access to electricity, all daily activities, such as heat, bathing, laundry and cooking, center around wood fires, and so burn-related injuries are common. Continue reading “PA Services Grant Recipient Shares Malawi Experience With Africa Burn Relief Program” →

Husband and wife team Koji Nakashima MD, a BWH hospitalist and Erin George, RN, MSN, CNM, a member of the BWH Nurse Midwifery Service, have a storied history of working in Haiti in partnership with Partners In Health (PIH). “We firmly believe that we need to level that playing field for people,” says Nakashima, specifically in the areas of access to food, clean water, and housing. Continue reading “Husband and Wife Team Committed to Global Health” →

Husband and wife team Koji Nakashima MD, a BWH hospitalist and Erin George, RN, MSN, CNM, a member of the BWH Nurse Midwifery Service, have a storied history of working in Haiti in partnership with Partners In Health (PIH). “We firmly believe that we need to level that playing field for people,” says Nakashima, specifically in the areas of access to food, clean water, and housing. Continue reading “Husband and Wife Team Committed to Global Health” →

As the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia continues to claim lives, the unfolding crisis derives less from the virus and more from inaccurate biases that led to an inadequate response. BWH Chief of the Division of Global Health Equity Paul Farmer and World Bank President Jim Yong Kim present this argument in a Washington Post op-ed entitled “What’s missing in the Ebola fight in West Africa,” published on Aug. 31. Continue reading “The Role of Bias in the Unfolding Ebola Epidemic” →

As the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia continues to claim lives, the unfolding crisis derives less from the virus and more from inaccurate biases that led to an inadequate response. BWH Chief of the Division of Global Health Equity Paul Farmer and World Bank President Jim Yong Kim present this argument in a Washington Post op-ed entitled “What’s missing in the Ebola fight in West Africa,” published on Aug. 31. Continue reading “The Role of Bias in the Unfolding Ebola Epidemic” →

In the United States, palliative care is recognized as an essential component of healthcare. By managing the symptoms of patients with chronic diseases and serious illnesses, palliative care providers help improve quality of life by managing pain or other severe impairments. Palliative care providers assist patients and families in the coordination of care and in the process of making difficult care decisions. They also help foster collaboration within an interdisciplinary medical team. In much of the Middle East, however, the term palliative care is not yet widely recognized in academic literature or integrated in the plan of care for patients with chronic disease or at the end of life.

Recently, a group of five nurse practitioners from the Oncology Nursing Society, supported by a grant from the Nation Cancer Institute, were asked by the Oncology Nursing Society and Middle Eastern Cancer Consortium to travel to Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey to conduct a foundational course in palliative care for nurses from various countries in the Middle East, including Iraq, Iran and Turkey. Among those nurse practitioners was Julie Vosit-Steller, DNP FNP-BC AOCN, from Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital’s Palliative Care Consult Service. Continue reading “BWFH Palliative Care Consultant teaches foundational course to nurses in the Middle East” →

Anne Lee, MD, of BWH’s Department of Pediatrics, has spent the past 5 years working in rural Bangladesh helping train local non-medical community health workers to recognize signs of prematurity in babies born at home, and to strengthen the referral process of these high-risk babies for hospital-based care. Now, she is seeking the support of the BWH community in a funding competition through the “Saving Lives at Birth” program in an effort to continue to build upon their work as her and her team was selected as finalists to compete in Washington DC at the end of July.

Continue reading “Supporting Premature Infants in Bangladesh” →