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In This Issue:
Linda Jo Stern, MPH, looks back on the last five years with immense pride. During that time, she launched and served as the director of PROMESA, a small international health project that brought BWH doctors, nurses, midwives and staff and HMS students to dozens of mountain villages in Honduras.
Stern will wrap up the five-year project at the end of April. “It's amazing to think how we improved the health and lives of hundreds of people in the tiniest villages more than 2,000 miles away,” she said.
Since January 2001, when Stern left her post as the executive director of the Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center for Honduran villages, PROMESA screened and educated 2,000 women on cervical cancer, brought dental care to 1,000 villagers and placed more than 300 medical students and residents in rural health care programs. Also, PROMESA played a role in improving homes for 200 families and led a Honduran government-sponsored project to use solar energy to bring potable water to a village with 400 inhabitants.
“PROMESA as a program ends now, but thanks to Linda and others, BWH will have a lasting legacy in dozens of mountain villages where we were able to affect immeasurable positive change that I am sure will endure,” said Gary Gottlieb, BWH president.