June 28, 2007
Bowling
Green, Ky. - Western Kentucky University will expand its international reach next summer with a medical program in Kenya.
Dr. Nancy Rice, an assistant professor in WKU’s Department of Biology, is working in collaboration with the University of Nairobi to develop “Partners in Caring: a Medical Service-Learning Exchange between Kenya and Kentucky.” The course is scheduled to begin in summer of 2008.
“We have a large number of pre-professional students in pre-medicine and pre-dental and this program is designed with them in mind to get service learning,” Dr. Rice said.
“Partners in Caring” builds on a memorandum of understanding between WKU and the University of Nairobi. WKU has been working with the Kenyan school in recent years on a biodiversity and conservation project.
The course will be taught with the support of Dr. Michael Collins and Dr. Richard Clouse, both family practitioners, and Dr. Kelly Kries, a pediatrician. The program’s objective is to develop a partnership among WKU pre-medical students, local physicians, University of Nairobi medical students and Kenyan physicians in order to enhance health in the Kasigau region of Kenya.
“Students, though participation in rural medical clinics led by our partnering physicians, will gain an appreciation of Kenyan culture and medicine and learn about the epidemiological challenges facing a third-world country while having a substantive, engaged international learning experience,” Dr. Rice said. “This is a unique opportunity for our students,”
In December, Dr. Rice, Dr. Collins and Dr. Clouse visited Kenya to establish formal ties with the University of Nairobi Medical School and to perform a needs assessment of the Kasigau area.
Residents of the region are poor and have no electricity or water. Access to medical facilities is limited to just three communities in the region.
And those facilities are “very primitive,” Dr. Clouse said. “They’ve made use of what they have.”
The group did surveys to get basic information and history of the villages and determine their health needs, which include childbirth education, HIV education, proper use of medications and use of mosquito nets to prevent malaria.
While the physicians will provide medical treatment, the students will take vital signs and medical histories of patients. “What we found out was that we can do a lot of good,” Dr. Rice said. “We’d like to make this a sustainable program.”
Once the program is established, the goal will be to make trips every six months during summer and winter terms. The program also will include opportunities for Kenyan students and physicians to visit WKU and the Bowling Green region.
“We don’t want to go in and change their culture; we’d also like to foster concern among the Nairobi students for their own people,” Dr. Rice said. “There is such poverty that if you make it to medical school you face a difficult choice in going back to an impoverished area.”
The first group of WKU students in the “Partners in Caring” course will be selected this fall. The selection process will be intensive because students will have to be prepared for the living conditions in the rural region, Dr. Rice said. “It’s a life-changing experience,” she said.
Once students are selected, they will complete a seminar course next spring on Kenyan culture, herbal medicine and health care in the Third World and will receive some basic medical skills training from the partner physicians.
In the summer of 2008, the medical group will travel to Kenya along with WKU’s biodiversity group.
“This program will be a win-win for the students and the university,” Dr. Clouse said. “If I was 18 again, I might have done it because it’s something you don’t get to do every day.”
Dr. Clouse and Dr. Collins are looking forward to working with the pre-professional students.
“I’ve always liked to work with students,” Dr. Collins said. “The pre-med students will really get a benefit from this course.”
More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu. If you’d like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.
For information, contact Nancy Rice at (270) 745-5995.
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