Letter from the BWPO Chairman
Dear Colleagues:
Brigham and Women’s Outreach to Chimbote is just the latest example of our institution’s long-standing commitment to bringing our brand of world-class care throughout the world. BWH has launched many programs, centers and institutes to advance care throughout the world.
Emergency Medicine’s Institute for International and Emergency Medicine and Health (IEMH) is improving emergency health care throughout the world and in rural areas of the United States by training thousands of first responders, and imparting on them the skills to train others. IEMH is reaching care providers worldwide by bringing clinicians here to Boston where they can train in the STRATUS Center for Medical Simulation, sending trainers abroad or utilizing BWH’s telemedicine capabilities to share training worldwide.
In the Department of Medicine, the Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities (DSMHI) taps experts in anthropology, history, sociology, epidemiology, statistics, economics and other social sciences to improve medical care in the world’s poorest areas. DSMHI brings support and coordination of training, research and direct care to improve care delivery and outcomes for both infectious and non-infectious diseases.
Truly, BWH is home to some of the world’s leading international humanitarians. Paul Farmer, Jim Kim, Michael VanRooyen, Jennifer Leaning and Hilarie Cranmer immediately come to mind. The world often looks to these BWH faculty for guidance and advice on how to bring health care to displaced populations, and many of our colleagues look to them for inspiration. Dozens more from Surgery, Anesthesia, Pathology, Orthopedics, Obstetrics and Gynecology and other departments and divisions also bring care to underserved populations and training and education to local care providers.
At BWH, we have developed a culture and an environment that encourages our physicians to act on their drive to do more for more people. This culture of international support attracts graduating medical school students with that same drive to do more for more people. BWH’s Outreach to Chimbote is another avenue to support for those in need.
Sincerely,
Steven Seltzer, MD
Chairman, BWPO