ICDDR, Bangladesh and Stanford Collaborations
This past September, a senior delegation from ICDDR, B visited Stanford University. The trip built on a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between ICDDR,B and Stanford University’s Global Health Program in the School of Medicine. MoU, signed by ICDDR,B’s Executive Director, Dr. Alejandro Cravioto and Senior Associate Dean of Global Health and Director of Global Health Programs in Medicine, Dr. Michele Barry provides a framework to facilitate collaborative global health activities between the two institutions. Stanford’s core strategic group included Dr. Mark Cullen, Dr. Ralph Horwitz, Dr. Eran Bendavid and Dr. Gary Schoolnik.
ICDDR,B is globally renowned for its groundbreaking research in areas such as diarrheal and infectious diseases, nutrition and child health. With this collaboration, Stanford and ICDDR, B will build capacity in the areas of scholarly and clinical exchange, health research, technology and institutional capacity building. The MoU opens up possibilities for new areas of research, capacity building activities and funding and is renewable every five years.
The ICDDR,B delegation included Dr. Abbas Bhuiya, Deputy Executive Director, Dr. Mark Pietroni, Medical Director, Dr Teresa Pietroni, Clinical Tutor, Dr. Tahmeed Ahmed, Head of Nutrition Program and Dr. Dewan Alam, Head of Chronic Non-Communicable Disease Unit. The ICDDR,B delegation met with a wide range of academicians, clinicians and researchers at Stanford. Ensuing discussions focused on collaborative research and capacity building activities, exchange visits, fellowships, internships, etc., at both ICDDR,B and Stanford.
Dr. Bhuiya explored future collaborations with Grant Miller, Assistant Professor, Center for Health Policy/Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research, regarding indoor pollution, appropriate interventions to reduce pollution for health gain and adding comfort to women’s life mainly through introduction of specially designed cooking stoves. He also met Lynne Gaffikin and shared ideas for assessing the ecosystem and study consequences on the ecosystem due to manmade changes. He also discussed the possibilities of future collaborations with Freya Spielberg and Sakti Srivastava, Associate Professor of Surgery to study the effectiveness of an IT based technological innovation called “Health Box” which is targeted to equipping health workers for providing improved primary healthcare with an embedded module on counseling on various issues including HIV/AIDs and STIs. This tool has a big prospect in societies with inadequate healthcare services driven by informally trained providers. Bangladesh is an ideal ground for adopting this IT based technology to provide health services to masses.
Dr. Ahmed held fruitful discussions with Dr. Kari Nadeau, Division of Immunology and Allergy and Dr. Cullen, Professor of Medicine and Chief, Division of General Medical Disciplines on a proposed study on childhood bronchial asthma to be undertaken in Bangladesh. Dr. Nadeau will develop a concept paper and Dr. Ahmed will discuss with Pediatricians in Dhaka Shishu Hospital about the feasibility of the study. Dr. Ahmed also discussed with Dr. Poornima Parameswaran, Post-doctoral Fellow in Pathology, another area for possible study in monitoring and tracking of infectious disease agents in the community. A study is proposed in which samples from the environment will be collected in addition to socioeconomic and demographic data of households. Dr. Ahmed raised the issue of childhood TB and Dr. Schoolnik expressed his willingness to contribute to research issues and start a collaboration.
Drs. Mark and Teresa Pietroni with the Medicine Residency Directors, Dr. Abraham Verghese and Dr. Ron Witteles, the Pediatrics Residency Director and Liaison, Dr. Lynn Kahana and Dr. Saraswati Kache, Anesthesia Critical Care Medicine Education Director, Dr. Ana Crawford and the Infectious Diseases Fellowship Director, Dr. Upi Singh. There is an impressive interest expressed by our residency and fellowship programs to send residents and fellows to ICDDR,B for clinical and teaching experience. Dr. Kache will be visiting ICDDR,B at the end of November to assess the site for pediatric residents. Also, Dr. Gina Suh and Dr. Brian Blackburn will be rotating through ICDDR, B for six weeks in January under the J&J Global Health Program.
Dr. Cullen expressed an interest in link Department of Family Medicine at Stanford with ICDDR,B while meeting with Dr. Teresa Pietroni. Options include working with ICDDR,B’s staff clinic doctors and the Travelers Clinic.
We look forward to these collaborations with ICDDR, B.