06 October 2023

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Returning to Rwanda: New Program Focuses on Training Future Physicians

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Building on strong partnerships in Rwanda that led to the launch of a new dental school in the country in 2018, Harvard School of Dental Medicine faculty returned to Rwanda this summer to expand oral health training, this time with a focus on future physicians.

“It was exciting to be involved in this transformative effort to train future physicians in key oral health concepts,” said Dr. Donna Hackley, assistant professor of Oral Health Policy and Epidemiology who serves as department head and course director of Oral Health at the University of Global Health Equity (UGHE).

Hackley, along with HSDM lecturers Drs. Eleana Stoufi and Michael Ray, in collaboration with UGHE faculty colleagues in Rwanda, taught a four-week oral health module to 30 medical students at the UGHE. Students were immersed in learning dental anatomy and terminology, disease processes, disease prevention and health promotion and the oral presentations of systemic disease.

“The curriculum represents the first step in providing a new avenue for oral health disease prevention and overall health promotion for the Rwandan population, and could be a promising model for boosting health and closing the health disparity for other countries, including ours,” Hackley said.

Didactic and skills lab teaching took place at the UGHE campus, while clinical rotations occurred at Butaro Teaching Hospital and Kinyababa Health Center. The medical students completed oral surgical training, learned how to manage infections, complete simple biopsies, and handle trauma cases under the supervision of the Butaro hospital dental staff–several of whom were graduates of the first dental school in Rwanda.

The vision for the program came from the late Dr. Paul Farmer, founder of the UGHE in Rwanda, and Dr. Abebe Bekale, Dean of UGHE, who recognized that oral health is vital to overall health. As an independent university with a mission to train global health professionals to deliver equitable, quality healthcare, integrating oral health into the university’s new 7-year medical training program was a natural fit.

“The collaborative team kept UGHE’s mission of equity at the forefront in designing a contextually relevant and sustainable program,” said Hackley. “We were able to incorporate community-based education and oral screenings that demonstrate the opportunities to advance disease prevention through a primary care approach.”

The training included anatomy exercises in UGHE’s state-of-the-art simulation laboratory, as well as experiences in the field that incorporated community-based education and oral screenings for 250 second and third graders at a local primary school.

The focus on co-teaching with local faculty ensures interdisciplinary training and contextual relevance and supports capacity strengthening and program sustainability. The HSDM team plans to return next year for a few weeks at the start of the module to support the launch of the course for the next cohort.

“The UGHE medical students are the top performers of the region. They engaged with the content enthusiastically and mastered oral healthcare clinical competencies seldom, if ever, taught in any medical school globally,” said Hackley. “UGHE-trained physicians stand ready to close the gap of health disparity.”

Source: https://hsdm.harvard.edu/