A trio of well-traveled Beaumont Health practitioners will share their global medicine experiences from far-off reaches of the world during an upcoming COMPASS Global Health Lunch n’ Learn Seminar at OUWB.
“Three Doctors, Three Continents: Beaumont Physicians at Work Around the Globe” is scheduled for Oct. 17, 11 a.m. – 12:45 p.m., 110 O’Dowd Hall. Those wishing to attend can register here.
Presenting physicians will be: Richard Keidan, M.D., OUWB associate professor of Surgery; Ilana Kutinsky, D.O., OUWB associate professor of Internal Medicine; and Barry Rosen, M.D., Beaumont Health Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Rachel Yoskowitz, MPH, assistant professor, Department of Foundational Medical Studies, and director, global health, at OUWB, said the hope is that OUWB students will gain a better understanding of global health care by hearing about real experiences.
“(Around the globe), we find the same diseases, the same therapeutic regimens, the same medications,” Yoskowitz said. “Unfortunately, not everyone has the same resources, or the same access.”
But, she said, addressing disparities in other parts of the world isn’t as simple as transplanting the same kind of health care offered in the U.S. to another country.
“The days of flying solo with a parachute where you drop into a place, you’re there for a week or two, and then disappear? That’s over,” Yoskowitz said. “It’s unethical and it’s counter-productive.”
How to successfully deliver modern medicine to under-resourced areas — whether Detroit, Da Nang, Denali, or just about anywhere else — is part of global medical education.
That’s why Yoskowitz said it’s important to provide OUWB students with exposure to physicians with significant experience in delivering health care to under-resourced regions.
To find the physicians Yoskowitz said she conducted multiple surveys of Beaumont physicians with global experience. Currently, she said, the list is at more than 70.
Keidan, Kutinsky, and Rosen travel abroad multiple times annually.
“Each of these physicians works on a different continent,” she said. “And each provides more than token-level care.”
Keidan has worked in Nepal for many years increasing his time there each year. He works in rural Khotang Province bringing sanitation, such as toilets to every house/hut, as well as health care to the people. Unique to his approach is that he builds bridges with the community by listening to their needs, following through, and collaborating with, the district health department.
Kutinsky travels to Nicaragua to evaluate children and identify previously undetected cardiac anomalies. She has started a foundation to support bringing these children to Beaumont for surgical correction of their cardiac defects. As an electrophysiologist, Kutinsky is the "cardiologist to the apes" and the co-founder of The Great Ape Heart Project. She travels to zoos all over the world to diagnose and treat the great apes.
Rosen works with AMPATH at Moi University in Kenya. 
AMPATH is the Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare partnership between North American academic health centers, led by the Indiana University School of Medicine, centered in Eldoret, Kenya. Rosen has been active in the AMPATH program traveling to Kenya multiple times a year to teach and practice. In addition to his teaching at Moi University, and in response to invitations from universities in Africa, he has established GME programs in gynecology in multiple African countries. There he promoted prevention and early diagnosis of gynecologic cancers in areas with inordinately high rates of cervical cancers.
In addition to bringing much-needed services to the regions in which they work, Yoskowitz said they all do it the right way.
“They collaborate, work with the community, and identify the needs (in the region) by letting those who live there identify their priorities,” she said. “It’s everything you want.”
For more information, contact Andrew Dietderich, marketing writer, OUWB, at [email protected].
