FCM's Jerry Koleski, MD, assistant professor and co-director of College of Medicine-Tucson's Office of Global and Border Health, recently spent time in Ghana, West Africa, where he mentored COM-Tucson medical students Brianna Quincy and Max Klahr, for their Global Health field experience. Brianna and Max are two of 17 medical students in 10 countries who participated in COM-Tucson's Global and Border Health program. Dr. Koleski mentored the medical students as they conducted health screenings on about 100 of 250 children at an orphanage school. They learned how to conduct a pediatric physical exam and diagnosed skin issues, migraines and allergic rhinitis in many of the children at the orphanage.
Dr. Koleski, Brianna and Max also visited the University of Allied and Health Sciences in Ho, Volta Region, Ghana. UA-COM is the newest of five medical schools in Ghana, and is affiliated with the Volta Region Teaching Hospital in Ho, the capital of Volta Region (the equivalent of a state in the U.S.) The group sat in on presentations by fourth-year Ghanaian medical students (out of a six year curriculum). They had just returned from an 8-day experience where they went to villages in Ghana, mapped the villages, met with village chiefs (the traditional healers and the health professionals in the village). The students discussed the health pluses and minuses of the village, and then met with the residents of the village to develop a plan with the village leaders to improve the health of the community. The excitement of the Ghanaian medical students was palpable as they presented their findings, and was shared by the UA group. The UA medical students then shadowed hospital rounds at Shai Hills/Osudoku Hospital, to see the Ghanaian health care system in action and conduct more health screenings.