I am pursuing a four-week international rotation in Kijabe, Kenya through my anesthesiology residency training this coming May. Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Kijabe Hospital have developed a partnership over decades. Vanderbilt anesthesia faculty practice and teach in Kijabe year-round to help grow the anesthesia work force in Kenya. The entire country has approximately 180 licensed physicians practicing anesthesia, the majority of whom live and work in Nairobi. There is a staggering disparity of providers in rural areas such as Kijabe, lending these areas to rely on Kenyan registered nurse anesthetists (KRNA’s) and a supervisory practice model to keep up with the demand of necessary surgical and anesthetic care.
As a visiting senior resident, I will work alongside, supervise, and help teach junior Kijabe anesthesia residents and KRNA students. Kijabe Hospital is a 380-bed hospital with General Surgery, Pediatric Surgery, Plastic Reconstructive and Hand Surgery, Urology, Orthopedics, Neurosurgery, Head and Neck and ENT Surgery, Adult Intensive Care (ICU), Pediatric ICU & NICU care. Providing direct patient care and extra clinical support will help the hospital serve the large diversity of patients who travel from all over the rural areas in the region. Furthermore, having the opportunity to teach anesthesia students at Kijabe will help create a sustainable long-term work force in rural Kenya.
Kijabe hospital performs approximately 10,000 surgical procedures and anesthetics annually. Patients are primarily local from the Kikuyu and Maasai communities in the Great Rift Valley. However, Kijabe hospital is also a high-volume tertiary care center for the wider East African population, providing care to patients referred from neighboring regions. Kijabe hospital handles complex cases which many of the smaller hospitals in the area cannot accommodate due to limited resources. I strive to help provide the best care possible to this medically complex patient population while also contributing to the longevity of anesthesia providers in the area by teaching junior residents and student KRNAs.
This global health opportunity will allow me to immerse myself in an environment with incredibly different challenges than what we face here in the United States. I will first-hand learn how anesthesia is practiced in a hospital with varying limited resources in comparison to the abundance we have at Vanderbilt. Furthermore, through experiencing the multitude of challenges both patients and providers face within these healthcare systems, I will develop a deeper understanding of how to ameliorate such disparities to serve these patient populations in my future practice.
The international anesthesia rotation at Kijabe will allow me to provide care to patients suffering from complex pathologies and limited access to medical and surgical care. Not only will I have a chance to directly impact these patients’ experiences with the healthcare system, but I will also be involved in the education of anesthesiology students and junior residents to help build a sustainable long-term work force in rural Kenya.
I hope to use this global health opportunity to further understand how resources can be used efficiently and effectively to provide benefit to as many patients as possible during both short-term and long-term healthcare efforts in limited resource areas. The artistry of having limited medications, equipment, and technology brings unique challenges within Anesthesia that are deeply intriguing. I hope to assist in developing long-term solutions to such disparities within and outside of the United States. Vanderbilt has long-term longitudinal relationships with hospitals in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Guatemala. In the future, I hope to participate in frequent international trips where I practice in different resource settings and may even permanently practice in another country after completing my residency and fellowship training.
I completed a four-week international rotation in Kijabe, Kenya through my anesthesiology residency training in May, 2026. Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Kijabe Hospital have developed a partnership over decades. Vanderbilt anesthesia faculty practice and teach in Kijabe year-round to help grow the anesthesia work force in Kenya. The entire country has approximately 180 licensed physicians practicing anesthesia, the majority of whom live and work in Nairobi. There is a staggering disparity of providers in rural areas such as Kijabe, lending these areas to rely on Kenyan registered nurse anesthetists (KRNA’s) and a supervisory practice model to keep up with the demand of necessary surgical and anesthetic care.
As a visiting senior resident, I worked alongside, supervised, and helped teach junior Kijabe anesthesia residents and KRNA students. Kijabe Hospital is a 380-bed hospital with General Surgery, Pediatric Surgery, Plastic Reconstructive and Hand Surgery, Urology, Orthopedics, Neurosurgery, Head and Neck and ENT Surgery, Adult Intensive Care (ICU), Pediatric ICU & NICU care. Providing direct patient care and extra clinical support allowed me to aid the hospital in serving the large diversity of patients who travel from all over the rural areas in the region. Patients traveled from the local Kikuyu and Maasai communities in the Great Rift Valley as well as traveled from the wider East African neighboring regions. Kijabe hospital handles complex cases which many of the smaller hospitals in the area cannot accommodate due to limited resources.
This opportunity to work at Kijabe Hospital allowed me to provide care to patients suffering from complex pathologies and limited access to medical and surgical care. Not only was I able to directly impact these patients’ experiences with the healthcare system, but I was also involved in the education of anesthesiology students and junior residents to help build a sustainable long-term work force in rural Kenya. Spending a month at Kijabe Hospital was an incredible learning and teaching experience and has been vital to my anesthesia education. Huge thank you to Doximity for providing a travel stipend to make this rotation possible!
