A team of physicians from Cooper University Health Care spent a week in Tanzania in November to provide advanced medical education at Muhimbili Hospital in Dar Es Salaam.
Muhimbili Hospital is the largest hospital in Tanzania, with 2,000 beds serving a city with a population of more than 4.3 million people.
Tanzania, located in Eastern Africa bordering on the Indian Ocean, has more than 60 million people and is one of the most impoverished countries in the world.
Dr. Nitin Puri, head of critical care medicine at Cooper, said the trip is in line with the system’s values.
“Education is one of three pillars of our mission at Cooper,” he said. “We were honored to be able to share our knowledge with colleagues halfway around the world to improve patient care.”
Funded by a grant, the team taught “Fundamentals of Critical Care Support,” a course developed by Cooper critical care physician Dr. Philip Dellinger for the Society of Critical Care Medicine in 1995.
The team taught 32 learners and toured the intensive care units at Muhimbili Hospital.
Following the visit, the hospital’s leadership asked the visiting medical team to help them develop the critical care infrastructure for the entire country. Cooper will also host a pulmonary/critical care fellow from Tanzania in May 2024 as part of the effort.
The Cooper team, which was led and organized by Puri, included Dellinger and three other members of Cooper’s Division of Critical Care Medicine:
- Dr. Jason Bartock;
- Dr. Adam Green;
- Dr. Lindsey Glaspey.
Physicians from Inova Fairfax in Virginia and Morehouse School of Medicine in Georgia joined the Cooper team.
