The purpose of this trip is to establish the foundation for a long-term partnership supporting the development of Emergency Medicine education and training in Mozambique. This collaboration has been in active planning for more than a year, with extensive coordination between our teams to understand the needs of the Emergency Medicine residency program and develop a sustainable model for ongoing educational support.
During the visit, our team will provide clinical bedside teaching and didactic education to Emergency Medicine residents, working alongside Mozambican physicians and faculty. I will also lead a team of Emergency Medicine trainees who will gain valuable experience working alongside their Mozambican colleagues while contributing to resident education.
This is intended to be the beginning of a sustained partnership focused on resident education, mentorship, and faculty development. Our approach is informed by more than 15 years of partnership in Guyana, where we helped support the development of Emergency Medicine from a country with no formally trained Emergency Medicine physicians to a program with 29 graduates who now serve as leaders throughout the country. The residency program is now primarily led by its own graduates, requiring substantially less ongoing support from our team.
We hope to help Mozambique achieve similar sustainable growth in Emergency Medicine. Funding travel for this visit will support direct education and mentorship of current residents while helping establish a long-term partnership with the potential to strengthen Emergency Medicine training and emergency care nationally for years to come.
The populations served by this initiative include the citizens of Maputo, Mozambique, and surrounding areas who rely on the local emergency care system, as well as the Emergency Medicine residents currently in training in Mozambique.
The initiative also serves Emergency Medicine trainees from our institution who participate in this work alongside their Mozambican colleagues. International clinical experiences during residency provide trainees with valuable opportunities to learn about different healthcare systems, develop skills in resource-limited settings, and build lasting professional relationships. Participation in global health work during residency has also been associated with a greater likelihood of future service in lower-resourced settings, extending the impact of this experience well beyond the immediate trip.
Ultimately, this initiative serves both the current and future patients of Mozambique by investing in the physicians who care for them, while also helping prepare the next generation of Emergency Medicine physicians to contribute to underserved communities globally.
The expected impact of this trip extends well beyond the initial visit. Our goal is to build a long-term partnership with the Emergency Medicine residency program in Maputo, providing ongoing education, mentorship, and collaboration for many years. We have also been asked to support pediatric critical care training, curriculum development, simulation and procedural skills courses; areas in which our team has experience through our longstanding work in Guyana.
The program already has a dedicated local program director, and our goal is to support her leadership and help strengthen the team of core faculty members who teach and mentor the residents. Over time, we hope to support the development of talented Emergency Medicine graduates who become leaders in Mozambique, advance the specialty, and help expand Emergency Medicine training and care beyond Maputo to other regions of the country.
Ultimately, we hope to contribute to a strong, locally led, and increasingly self-sustaining program. Just as importantly, we hope to build the lasting professional relationships and friendships that make long-term collaboration possible.
I recently had the wonderful opportunity to spend several weeks in Mozambique working alongside the emergency medicine residents at Hospital Central de Maputo (HCM). This trip was particularly meaningful because it has been more than a year in the making. I have been working closely with the program director to better understand their particular needs and develop opportunities to support both clinical and didactic education within the emergency medicine residency program.
I was also fortunate to bring two Vanderbilt physicians with me: our Global Emergency Medicine fellow, who will be spending a significant portion of her fellowship working in Mozambique, and one of our second-year emergency medicine residents, who has developed a strong interest in global emergency medicine and hopes to incorporate this perspective into her future career.
Spending this time at HCM was an incredible learning experience. I had the opportunity to see firsthand how emergency medicine is practiced within the Mozambican healthcare system and how residents care for critically ill patients, often without access to many of the advanced imaging modalities and resources we take for granted. In these settings, careful physical examination, clinical judgment, and continued reassessment and monitoring are essential to making difficult management decisions.
One of the things that struck me most was the teamwork. When a critically ill patient arrived, the emergency medicine physicians and nurses immediately came together, each person stepping in to help. Senior residents took on leadership roles while the rest of the team shared responsibilities and worked together to care for the patient. It was a wonderful example of the collaborative nature of emergency medicine.
And while I do not speak Portuguese, I was continually reminded that kindness and connection extend far beyond language. There was a warmth and generosity among the residents and specialists that made me feel welcomed from the very beginning. At the end of my time in Mozambique, the program director told me, “I felt like I was with a close friend.” I couldn't agree more.
This trip has strengthened my excitement about the partnership between Vanderbilt and our colleagues in Mozambique. I believe this is only the beginning of many more months spent learning, teaching, and working alongside this incredible group of emergency medicine physicians and residents.
A heartfelt thank you to Doximity for making this visit with our Mozambican partners possible. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity and look forward to what comes next!
