The IU-Kenya program

So the driver for our trip is the IU-Kenya partnership, which links Indiana University School of Medicine (IUSM) and Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret, Kenya. The partnership started in 1989 as an exchange of teaching physicians and medical residents and students. A decade later the partnership expanded in response to the explosion of HIV/AIDS in East Africa program: the AMPATH program (Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare) was created. AMPATH focuses on prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS, with a large system of rural clinics.

We’ll be learning a lot more about it on our trip. For those who want more info, which is much better presented than my attempt at summarizing it, check out:
http://www.iukenya.org/
In addition, an Indy TV station ran a series about the partnership last fall, so if you REALLY want to get even more, go to http://www.wthr.com/ and search the site with keyword “Kenya”.

So that’s some context for the trip (and for those who work with me at Lilly—we don’t have a monopoly on acronyms!). Allison is a third year pediatric resident at IUSM, so she’ll be working with a Kenyan counterpart in the Moi Hospital. One of Allison’s colleagues, Bethany, is going at the same time as well. And I was graciously granted a leave of absence from work to join Allison on the adventure.

So that’s blog entry #2. I imagine I’ll post at least one more before our departure on March 1st.

wow... a blog

Hi All,
So other than periodically checking the blogs of a few friends, I never thought I'd be joining the "blogosphere", if thats even the correct term at this point. But, as Allison and I leave in 2 weeks for Kenya, we thought this would be a convenient trip diary of sorts for people back home to check occasionally.

More to come on where we're going and why...
Greg