I will be traveling to Eldoret, Kenya. The main purpose of the trip is to continue building a longitudinal relationship at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital to develop neurologic care for Western Kenya, where there is no permanent adult neurologist. I will be supervising learners, conducting research, and giving lectures on neurology. I will see patients in a 1,000+ bed hospital as well as staffing a neurology clinic.
This is a trip that was previously funded in April 2024. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend due to a nationwide strike of the Kenyan doctors. Because of this, we did not make the trip. I am re-applying for the same trip funding that was not utilized this past year.
A population of several million individuals in Eldoret and the surrounding rural areas will receive direct benefit from both neurology expertise for patient care, as well as education for the Kenyan registrars (equivalent to US residents) in medicine who we teach on neurologic disorders as well as neurologic exam.
The expected impact is from education, direct patient care, and development of research projects. The goal is that these initial visits are to develop a longitudinal relationship partnering with our local Kenyan counterparts to build up access to neurology care for an underserved population.
We spent two weeks at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital. During that time, we did daily 2 hour teaching sessions with Kenyan medical students and registrars (approximately 30-40 trainees). There is no full-time neurologist for the entire medical school or hospital, so the teaching sessions were invaluable. In addition, we saw greater than 100 patients with neurologic conditions ranging from epilepsy to severe infections of the nervous system. Lastly, we also had meetings with various stakeholders to advance patient protocols and hospital flow through the emergency room and clinic. I also delivered grand rounds to the medical school with an audience attendance of over 150 individuals.
