Center for Global Health announces fall 2024 student and trainee travel grant awardees

The MUSC Center for Global Health is pleased to announce its 2024 fall cycle recipients of its student and trainee Global Health travel grant awards.

Annually, the center offers MUSC students and trainees opportunities to apply for grants of up to $2,000 each for international travel to low- and middle-income countries. The goal of each award is to assist recipients in furthering their global health service learning and training in communities abroad. Awarded projects can be research, service-learning, or educational in nature.
This year’s student and trainee global health travel grant awardees include:

Jessica Bauer, MD

• College of Medicine, Pediatrics Resident
• Project title: Exploring Pediatric Global Health in Tanzania
• Location: Arusha, Tanzania
• Project description: This trip will be a four-week pediatric rotation at both Arusha Lutheran Medical Centre and Selian Lutheran Hospital in Arusha, Tanzania as part of the Pediatric Residency Global Health Track. During this rotation, Dr. Bauer will be responsible for inpatient and outpatient care of pediatric patients with expectations to teach medical students and other residents abroad. She will also be required to complete an educational project while abroad that will then be presented to pediatric residents and faculty back at MUSC.

Melisa Davis

• College of Pharmacy
• Project title: Global Health Experience in Uganda: Pharmacy Clinical Rotation and Community Outreach at Masindi Kitara Hospital
• Location: Masindi, Uganda
• Project description: While at Masindi Kitara Hospital, Davis will receive the opportunity to engage in direct patient care within a resource-limited setting, focused on managing prevalent disease states such as HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, and hypertension, conditions that are highly impactful within the Ugandan population.

Natalie Eidson, MD

• College of Medicine, Pediatrics Resident
• Project title: 2025 Bolivia Global Health Rotation
• Location: La Tarija, Bolivia
• Project description: At the La Tarija site in Bolivia, Dr. Eidson and others will collaborate with local healthcare professionals at Hospital Regional San Juan de Dios, local and rural clinics, as well as at home visits to learn about regional diseases and barriers to healthcare. This experience includes daily Spanish classes and host family accommodations for further cultural immersion.

Stephanie Hayden, MD

• College of Medicine, Pediatrics Resident
• Project title: Pediatric Rotation in Arusha, Tanzania
• Location: Arusha, Tanzania
• Project description: Dr. Hayden will be participating in a four-week pediatric rotation at Arusha Lutheran Medical Centre in Arusha, Tanzania and Selian Lutheran Hospital (SLH) in Selian, Tanzania. As part of the global health rotation, she will be participating in pediatric inpatient and outpatient clinical care five days per week. Additionally, she will engage in teaching activities to medical students and other residents as appropriate.

Courtney Jacks

• College of Medicine
• Project title: Improving Women's Health Through Digital Applications in Ethiopia
• Location: Aksum, Ethiopia
• Project description: While at Askum University Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Jacks will be supporting a CGH-funded pilot grant project that proposes to develop a new Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system that can capture information from past medical records/questionnaire while also providing training to successfully capture information from future HPV and cervical cancer infected women. The primary goal is to locate high-risk women and make Visual Inspection using Acetic acid (VIA) screening for HPV available to them.

Sarisha Menon

• College of Medicine
• Project title: Enhancing Pediatric Emergency Care: Evaluating a New Emergency Triage System in Masindi, Uganda
• Location: Masindi, Uganda
• Project description: Menon will be working closely with local staff at Masindi Kitara Hospital to assess the efficacy of a Pediatric Triage Tool, which categorizes pediatric patients based on the urgency of their condition, while identify limitations to its implementation and delivering emergency care in the low-resource setting.

Jacob Peller

• College of Medicine
• Project title: Evaluation of Systemic Triage Tools in LMICs
• Location: Masindi, Uganda
• Project description: While at Masindi Kitara Hospital, Peller’s project aims to achieve three objectives: identify barriers to the implementation of Ugandan Emergency Triage Assessment Tool; investigate via chart review if patients identified as high acuity are seen in a timely manner; and determine the effectiveness of the tool as determined by mortality in the emergency department and time to provider of medium and high acuity patients.

Kaylee Simon

• College of Pharmacy
• Project title: Global Health Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience in Bolivia
• Location: La Paz, Bolivia
• Project description: While in La Paz, Simon will be observing local pharmacists, physicians and other medical professionals for four weeks at local hospitals, clinics and other public health sites. She will develop an understanding of how the Bolivian healthcare system functions compared to the U.S.; apply global health concepts including health equity and health security, and much more.

Sonora Snook

• College of Health Professions
• Project title: Application and Assessment of Mobile Play Station to Implement Play-Based Physical Therapy with Young Children in Uganda
• Location: Masindi, Uganda
• Project description: This global health project will aim to assess play in Ugandan children with and without disabilities engage in play-based activities and educate nurses, therapists, and caregivers on the importance of engaging children in culturally relevant play. Using a case series, Snook will facilitate, assess and compare the play of four children without disabilities and four children with disabilities.

Evan Wilson

• College of Medicine
• Project title: Belize Cataract Research & Educational Project
• Location: Belize City, Belize
• Project description: While in Belize, Wilson will gain clinical exposure to cataract surgery techniques rarely employed in the United States but that are utilized frequently in limited resource settings. Project objectives will also include identifying comorbidities disproportionately impacting post-operative outcomes of Belizean patients through both direct patient interaction as well as data collection on the ground, and more.

Interested applicants were required to submit a cover page, project proposal, personal essay, program budget, letters of support and resume. Awardees must use the funds within the next 12 months.In addition to the funds provided to support their travels, students and trainee grant recipients also have access to free resources from the University’s travel, health and security assistance provider, International SOS, as do all individuals traveling abroad while representing MUSC. The company offers 24/7 access to medical and travel assistance, emotional and mental health support and security advice while abroad. Students and trainees are required to comply with the MUSC international travel policy, including requesting review and approval via the University’s travel registry.

For more information about the center’s travel grants, please visit https://web.musc.edu/about/global-health/funding/student-and-trainee-travel-grant.