REACH holds monthly meetings featuring expert speakers, well-known authors, and reports from faculty and residents about their international health experiences.
We are moving towards including global health content as part of each residency's curriculum.
REACH provides prep and debriefing sessions for all residents who participate in away rotations at international sites, to help them deal with the psychological and mental toll of these experiences.
Global Health Meeting Topics
Recent meetings have featured:
A photographic exhibit: "The Stories We Carry: New American Neighbors in Greater Springfield and Beyond”
Members of the award winning High School of Commerce Photography Club have been photographing refugee families in the greater Springfield area and their work is described as “a powerful celebration of strength, courage and determination”. Susannah Crolius from the Western Massachusetts Refugee and Immigrant Consortium will introduce this project. Also, Zakaria Ahmed Gas, Refugee Health and Interpreter Supervisor at Caring Health Center, will be present to discuss recent and upcoming patterns in refugee resettlement in the Springfield area.
Jambo Tanzania Experience
Mary Banda MD, an internist at Mercy Medical Center, will discuss her ongoing work in Tanzania. She founded Jambo Tanzania a nonprofit humanitarian organization whose mission is “to serve as a lightning rod for critically needed health care and educational initiatives in the village of Bukoba and the Kagera Region of Tanzania”.
Ethics and Global Health
Peter DePergola, PhDc, MTS, Clinical Ethicist in Residence & Chair, Ethics Consultation Service
Division of Academic Affairs, Baystate Health, will facilitate and ethics session on global health clinical work.
Maternal Mortality in the Developing World
Dr. Lorraine Bello, ex-partner for 24 years at Hampshire OBGYN, wil discuss her work for past 7 years internationally for various groups including Doctors Without Borders, Mercy Ship, Doctors of the World.