For the past five years, six third-year residents in internal medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine have been able to study abroad in Ethiopia at Black Lion Hospital, which is affiliated with Addis Ababa University. Now Emory is expanding its study abroad program in Ethiopia to include residents in surgery, pediatrics, dermatology, anesthesiology, pathology, gynecology and obstetrics, family and preventive medicine, and rehabilitation medicine.
James Lee, who spent the month of March in Ethiopia while completing his third year of residency, spoke of his experience by saying, “It was a unique opportunity to see a medical system that’s different from what we have here. While we had some preparation for what we might see, it was very different from what I expected. About 50 percent of the cardiac patients I saw were young — in their 20s and 30s — and dying of heart failure due to untreated rheumatic heart disease they had as children. We had to do what we could with the medications that were available. We saw many cases that could have had positive outcomes if we had seen them here in the United States.”
