In an experience funded by the Center for Global Health Equity and facilitated by faculty in the Departments of Emergency Medicine and Public Health Sciences, a team of UVA medical students, undergraduates, emergency medicine residents, and faculty traveled to Nepal to partner with Nepali colleagues in Kathmandu and Dhulikhel on a variety of projects. Undergraduate students Amelia Badipour, Rashmi Bhatta, Medha Chhetri, Sara Kakatkar, Mariam Parray, and rising second-year medical students Kirti Patel, Luis De La Rosa, and Sam Ryan spent three weeks in this immersive public health and health capacity building experience.
At Dhulikhel Hospital, they partnered with local physicians in emergency medicine to conduct trainings for 30 ambulance drivers and 30 EMTs in basic life-saving skills. Drs. Peter Vandersteenhoven, Nardos Makonnen, and Amita Sudhir (emergency medicine faculty) and Dr. Nicholas McKean (resident in emergency medicine) mentored the students through designing and teaching the locally contextualized workshops, which were featured in a local newspaper.
During an earlier part of the trip, the students, under the direction of Rajesh Balkrishnan, professor of public health sciences, attended workshops on trauma registry development and Environmental Sustainability and Health. The students participated in grant writing and are working on an evidence-based review paper.
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