Every year members of the department participate in global health activities. For example, Dr. Ana Crawford, clinical assistant professor and director global health in the dept of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine at Stanford, Melanie Gipp Stanford pediatric anesthesia fellow, and Chris Press Stanford anesthesia chief resident are in Kigali, Rwanda for a teaching program at two hospitals of the National University of Rwanda.
They are teaching local anesthesiologists, residents and staff about anesthesia, including critical care medicine, procedural skills in a new simulation center, and pediatric anesthesia. An additional focus is the education of anesthesia technicians, the most common anesthesia care providers across Rwanda.
The program, in partnership with the Canadian Anesthesiologists’ Society International Education Foundation, has worked in Rwanda since 2006 to build and strengthen the medical teaching capacity in Rwanda. The goal is to build capacity for anesthesia training in Rwanda so that, over time, there will be enough local staff physician anesthesiologists to run the program with minimal international support.