You are receiving this email because of your interest/affiliation with Kybele, Inc. and/or one of its members.  If you feel you have received this email in error, you may safely unsubscribe at the bottom of this email.  Thank You.  

Shaping Tomorrow's Global Health Workforce 

This year, we chart progress in reaching the Millennium Development Goals established by the United Nations in 2000. Goals four and five call for a worldwide reduction in newborn and maternal mortality. Progress has been made; however, too many deaths still occur. There are an estimated at 298,000 maternal and 3.7 million neonatal deaths worldwide each year. Solutions are complex and require an in-depth understanding of issues at the crossroads of medicine, culture and socioeconomic status. Going forward, who will understand and address healthcare inequity? Kybele is working to find answers to that question through its active involvement in shaping tomorrow's global health leaders.

Dr. Sheel Todd (center) poses with nurse anesthesia students at Ridge Regional Hospital.

Since Kybele's inception, almost 15 percent of its participants have been upper-level resident and fellow physicians. They have come from 15 institutions across four countries. They are at the peak of their medical knowledge acquisition yet remain impressionable and malleable. In a global health environment, they operate both as teacher and learner as they gain an understanding of real-world healthcare problems that too often result in unnecessary and untimely death. Our goal is to expose them to the issues, to stretch them, to change them and to launch global health as a platform for their life's work.

With appreciation, 

Medge D. Owen, M.D., President - Kybele, Inc.

Professor of Obstetric Anesthesia

Director of Global Health, Novant Health Maya Angelou Women's Health and Wellness Center  

Wake Forest University School of Medicine  |  336.713.9182  |  www.kybeleworldwide.org 

Lifebox and Kybele Partner with Armenian Society of Anaesthesiologists for Safer Surgery

Article by Sarah Kessler, Lifebox Foundation

Safe surgery can't bring back the millions of women who have lost their lives in childbirth, but it can change things for future generations.  

A recent study by Higashi and colleagues found that if quality surgery were universally available, a  tremendous number of maternal and neonatal diseases and surgical conditions in low-resource settings could be reduced - averting an estimated 21 million years of healthy life lost. But the necessary surgeries are few and far between and are not always conducted safely. 

Lifebox Foundation is a global NGO led by surgeon and author Atul Gawande. The organization works in more than 90 countries where healthcare workers often lack the resources and training they need to conduct safe surgery and anesthesia.

Pulse oximeter in action during a Cesearan section at a district hospital in Rwanda.  Photo courtesy of Lifebox.

Lifebox provides essential equipment and education in the World Health Organization's Surgical Safety Checklist. This intervention has been proven to reduce complications and mortality by more than 40 percent. 

In their first-ever joint project, Lifebox and Kybele are working in collaboration with the Armenian Society of Anaesthesiologists and Intensive Care Specialists and with support from the Armenian Ministry of Health on a project to make anesthesia safer. Lifebox is donating 100 essential oxygen monitors [pulse oximeters] that a Kybele team will deliver in September as part of a training workshop. The estimated value of the donation is $25,000.

This project won't only make childbirth safer for those mothers and babies whose last hope might be an emergency Caesarean section but will also support colleagues who are on the front line day after day.

Stay tuned for updates this fall.

Kybele Offers Global Health Experiences

During Residency

Article by Medge Owen 

OB anesthesia fellows, Dr. Matt Hatch (left) Wake Forest and Dr. Onyi Onuoha (right) University of Pennsylvania, help set up a donated anesthesia machine.

Global health opportunities offer unconventional educational experiences for senior-level resident and fellow physicians. They allow them the satisfaction of giving back as they share the medical knowledge they've rapidly accumulated. They are abreast of the latest concepts and ideas within their field of study and can contribute immensely to the training mission of the Kybele teams. For the past 10 years, Kybele has offered select institutions the opportunity to send their best residents and fellows into the field to become part of a multidisciplinary team of experts. The residents are assigned scholarly projects to complete or teaching responsibilities. The tables below represent the institutions from which most residents come and their various fields of study. To date, 15 institutions within four countries (U.S., Canada, England and Scotland) have sent their residents to join forces with Kybele. Even more institutions and organizations want to be a part in the future. Kybele will soon collaborate with the University of Saskatchewan's obstetrics and gynecology program in Saskatoon, Canada. Health Volunteers Overseas (HVO), a DC based non-profit, will also offer a Kybele site for their highly competitive Society of Education in Anesthesia's - HVO traveling fellowship.   

The residency programs benefit, as well. According to Dr. John Reynolds, Residency Program Director at Wake Forest Department of Anesthesiology: "Global Health opportunities have been a pivotal part of our program for more than a decade. From the outset, it is a powerful recruiting draw knowing that such an opportunity is developed within a program. Even though only a handful of residents may be able to apply or participate four years later, a great majority of applicants consider it a crucial elective opportunity when comparing programs. Those residents who do go abroad are forever changed by the experience."

Many of the resident physicians remain on board with Kybele once they graduate, and some even become program leaders or resident supervisors. One such example is Dr. Matt Hatch, who traveled to Ghana with Kybele in 2012 as a Wake Forest OB anesthesia fellow. He is now a faculty member who supervises residents during their global health rotations with Kybele.