Duke Faculty Train Rwanda Health Providers

Doctors and nurses from Duke University are training medical professionals in Rwanda, and helping the African nation build a sustainable health care system. Duke is among several American academic institutions participating in the U.S.-government-funded program.

Catherine Gilliss is Dean of Duke's Nursing School. She says the objective is to train nurses in Rwanda to deliver more sophisticated care.

Catherine Gilliss says, "... but also to prepare those nurses so that they can can then be in a position to continue to educate the next generation and the next wave of nurses."

Duke associate professor of medicine Nathan Thielman says the goal is the same for the doctors in the program.

Nathan Thielman says, "This program will scale up and scale down over 7 years. We want to work ourselves out of a job and leave the Rwanda medical education system in much better shape, not really needing our assistance."

Duke faculty members will live and work in Rwanda for a year at a time.