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MEDICAL EDUCATION
New Residency Created in Global HealthHealth and access to medical care should be a basic human right, said David A. Walton, one of two residents in a new global health equity residency program at Brigham and Women's that aims to advance that idea.Walton and Nancy Lange are the first two physicians to be selected for the Howard Hiatt Residency in Global Health Equity and Internal Medicine, established in the Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities in BWH's Department of Medicine. The program will train physicians to care for those in underserved areas as well as to act as advocates for people without access to health care, which Lange and Walton see as a pressing concern. "At the same time that developments in science and medicine occur at an unprecedented pace, the poor continue to die of treatable diseases at an alarming rate," Walton said. "The residency is a novel and effective way to combat complacency and create change in areas that need them most." The four-year multidisciplinary course of study honors Howard Hiatt, an HMS professor of medicine and of social medicine at BWH, whose 50-year career includes tenure as dean of HSPH from 1972 to 1984. The training of the residents will involve fields like global health advocacy, epidemiology, biostatistics, and health care policy. They will spend one fourth of their training, which is directed by HMS professor Paul Farmer, doing fieldwork at locations established by affiliated institutions and programs, including HSPH and Partners In Health. At the conclusion of the residency, they will be eligible for certification by the American Board of Internal Medicine and will have completed a master's degree in public health from HSPH. "I came to the Brigham with long-standing admiration for Partners In Health and Paul Farmer and hoped that in some way I could incorporate working with them into my short and busy time during residency," said Lange. "I was really excited when the opportunity for this residency program came up earlier this spring because it seemed to me the best next step for me in my own pursuit of what appears to be a new and developing field of medicine--global health equity." Lange has worked abroad treating HIV patients in Senegal and in Brazil as part of an epidemiologic study of leptospirosis. "In both of these experiences," she said, "I was inspired to see how physicians can be empowered to work towards the goals of fighting poverty and the inequities that lead to disease." Lange hopes to be able to work with HIV patients in resource-poor settings, like Partners In Health's Haiti program. Walton, HMS 2003, was a research assistant to Paul Farmer, the Maude and Lillian Presley professor of social medicine at HMS, in the Program in Infectious Disease and Social Change, where he studied emerging infectious diseases in Latin America and researched HIV and sexually transmitted diseases in Haiti. "I would hope to learn the tools and skills needed to be an effective advocate for the poor and to take lessons learned in places like Haiti to other resource-poor settings, such as sub-Saharan Africa," Walton said. He hopes that this program will increase awareness of this field and trigger other academic institutions to follow suit. "People have had to forge their own paths and scramble to find their own mentors," he said. "This process is a revolutionary way to highlight these issues, to create more awareness, and to train physicians to specifically address inequalities." Lange and Walton were recognized at a reception held at the Brigham on May 18 to mark the establishment of the residency and honor Hiatt and his career. --Leah Gourley |
