Site Locations
Site locations for field training are evolving as BIDMC's Global Health Faculty continues to nurture partnerships abroad. In the past, residents were able to go to many different sites as listed below. In the future years we are planning to establish dedicated sites that guarantee an optimal educational experience for the resident, a supportive mentorship relationship and at the same time serve the local community.
Our main site will be the Scottish Livingstone Hospital in Botswana. Projects outside of the established site in Botswana will continue to be possible if the resident carries particular interest in a specific location or project especially for residents outside of the Department of Medicine.
The following are sites and collaborative programs that residents and faculty have been involved with in the past and where research or clinical activities are ongoing or are potential sites for future work.
The field of global health has evolved to transcend the 'international' and instead embrace the concepts of resource limitation, political marginalization and advocacy. Residents are encouraged to serve in one of many community health centers that serve largely marginalized populations.
Main International Sites
Africa - Scottish Livingstone Hospital, Botswana: The Scottish Livingstone Hospital is a large district hospital in Botswana located an hour from the capital city of Gaborone. The hospital is located in Molepolole, a large traditional village 60 km from the capital city of Botswana, Gaborone. Molepolole has a population of approximately 70,000 inhabitants within the Kweneng East district (190,000 inhabitants), which has an age adjusted HIV prevalence of 32.1%. The Scottish Livingstone Hospital is a 200-bed hospital, which relocated to a newly-built structure in November 2007. Scottish Livingstone Hospital offers inpatient and outpatient medicine, obstetrics/gynecology, surgical care, and an emergency department. It is run by generalist physicians. Botswana is a politically stable country in southeastern Africa. Its population is approximately 1.8 million people and it is the size of France. The government has recieved widespread recognition for a progressive and laudable response to the HIV epidemic. Botswana was the first African nation to introdcue a nationl program to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV. Botswana also opened its first medical school in 2009. Residents and medical students will be expected to rotate at the hospital.
Asia - Harvard Medical School AIDS Initiative in Vietnam (HAIVN): Physician and nurse training on HIV/AIDS care in Vietnam through funding from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). BIDMC contacts - Drs. Howard Libman (Director), Donn Colby (Medical Director), Todd Pollack and Doanh Lu (Medical Officers) and Bridget Gardner (Associate Director).
Other International Sites Visited by Our Residents
Potential Sites
Residents have taken significant initiative in organizing elective/research rotations. Over the past 5 years, residents have worked with Marie Stopes in London, an NGO in Indonesia, a fistula hospital in Addis Ababa, a large public hospital in Zambia, a clinic in Japan and a hospital in Kiev, Ukraine. All of these sites may potentially act as future placement sites if there is interest expressed by a resident to expand the experience..
Yale/Johnson & Johnson Physician Scholars in International Health
By placing physicians trained in the US face-to-face with the broad range of health care needs in the developing world, the Yale International Health Program (IHP) hopes to instill a sense of global citizenry and create local and international community activists in health. The established program sites are in Eritrea, Honduras; Tugela Ferry, South Africa; Ugana and Vietnam. Two medicine residents in the last two years have received grants through the Yale/Johnson & Johnson Scholars in International Health Program.
