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Our Global Health faculty have also provided hundreds of hours of clinical care to some of the world’s poorest children and has worked to build clinical capacity in LMICs through bedside teaching, curriculum development and medical education.

Dr. Tisu Mvalo provides 10% of his time to inpatient pediatric care in our host hospital in Malawi, Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH). Dr. Kate Westmoreland has provided Heme/Onc care to hundreds of patients while in-country doing research through her K award> Dr. Elizabeth Fitzgerald spends two months per year in Malawi, providing clinical care and medical education and working on quality improvement projects at our host hospital in Lilongwe.

Since 2016, UNC has also been part of a consortium of academic universities working together in Malawi, called PACHIMAKE, which aims to improve the care of acutely ill children through coordinated and locally led clinical, educational, quality improvement initiatives.

In addition to faculty protected time for clinical care, the UNC Pediatric Department has provided several years of funding for a pediatric inpatient database at KCH that has led to improvements in outcomes for children with Severe Acute Malnutrition, as well as in the development of other Quality Improvement initiatives.

UNC Pediatric Global Health faculty have also been recipients of philanthropic donations of more than $200,000 over the last three years, which has been used to strengthen partnering institutions.

COVID Isolation Building
Philanthropic Funds through UNC supported the building of this Observation Unit at Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH) and has been used during the COVID-19 pandemic as an isolation ward.

Cardiology

In collaboration with a well-established non-profit organization, Project Health for Leon, and UNC Department of Medicine cardiologists, Dr. Elman Frantz introduced catheter-based treatments for congenital heart disease for selected patients at the HEODRA UNAN hospital in Leon, Nicaragua in January 2018.

In August of 2017, Dr. Frantz supported the outpatient evaluation and selection of children with congenital heart disease in the established HEODRA clinic. During both of these trips, supervision and mentorship were provided to pediatric resident Dr. Thomas Blount. Future trips are planned to continue providing catheter-based treatments for congenital heart disease.