Thursday, June 26, 2014

Laurel and Bill's Year in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania with the Global Health Service Partnership

About 12 months ago Laurel showed me a description of a new volunteer program for nurses and doctors that involved living in sub-Saharan Africa for a year while helping to train future health care professionals. At the time she was home between assignments with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Bangladesh and South Sudan. I was working full-time in quality with St Thomas Health here in Nashville. I remember thinking (and saying) "I can't do that." How times change!
We leave in ten days for a year in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania with GHSP, GHSP, a joint venture between Seed Global Health,  seedglobalhealth.org, a Boston based NGO, and the US Peace Corps. We will be teaching our respective trades at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS) for the next year. The idea is to impact the dearth of trained healthcare workers in Tanzania, one of the countries with the highest burdens of disease in the world.
Many of you have asked that we stand up a blog and have expressed interest in following our adventures. Thank you for taking the time to read this. We look forward to hearing from you.
Bill and Laurel