I will travel to the Navrongo Health Research Centre (NHRC) in rural Ghana to understand and identify ways to expand its
partnership with Mount Sinai in the short and long term in clinical service delivery, education, and teaching.
In the short term, I will be engaged in clinical education and teaching especially in the area of palliative care which is a highly under-developed clinical area in Ghana. In the long-term, I hope to engage in public health leadership, program delivery, and strategic planning to help strengthen a bilateral global health partnership that will have long-term benefits to both NYC and Navrongo, Ghana.
The research centre is in Navrongo, Ghana, a rural community on the border with Burkina Faso. My clinical education and teaching activities will benefit the medical staff and trainees in Navrongo and its surrounding areas. This is important because it is a lower resource primary health centre where referrals to a higher level of care is often more than 3 hours away by vehicle. It is in northern Ghana which has worse health outcomes than its larger southern cities.
This project will also benefit its American partner which is the Arnhold Institute for Global Health in strengthening and strategically growing their partnership. Ultimately, my project will hopefully be mutually beneficial to both partners.
My project deliverable will include but is not limited to a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis to assess organizational capacity of the NHRC to engage in education, research, and service delivery as well as a process map for longer-term engagement, inclusive of an on-site role for Mount Sinai program faculty from July 2025 onward.
I will also produce lectures and teaching material on clinical education including in palliative care.
I spent most mornings observing rounds in the male and female medical wards. In the afternoons, I worked on partnership-building work. I spoke with over 20 collaborators from various institutions in the partnerships and did a brief literature review on research to policy translation. I synthesized everything to produce a mission and strategy for the partnership that will hopefully provide helpful steps for its leaders.
I learned that partnerships take intent and strategy to grow purposefully. The more stakeholders they involve, the more complicated they grow. There is both diagnostic and therapeutic value to having one-on-one conversations with stakeholders and asking what they want.
I think the effect of this trip is highest in trying to intentionally foster this institutional partnership that if successful, can have notable implications for researchers, communities, and potentially health policy.
