UA Partners with Medical School in Cameroon

A unique partnership between the University of Buea and the University of Arizona will help train doctors in Cameroon to reduce maternal and early neonatal mortality in an area with one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.

A $4 million grant from the World Bank will allow the UA and the University of Buea in Cameroon to continue efforts that began in 2017 to train and retain OB/GYN doctors.

Mike Brady, MD, and Laura Mercer, MD, both faculty at the UA College of Medicine – Phoenix, worked with a team of physicians in Cameroon and Phoenix to establish the partnership. The result is a post-graduate training program for doctors in Cameroon.

“Childbirth in other parts of the world is remarkably different than in the United States, and in some places, it’s 100 times more dangerous to have a child,” Dr. Brady said. “The goal is to take excellent young doctors and train them in this specialty in Cameroon, and thus reduce mortality and morbidity in Sub-Saharan Africa.”

Delegates from the University of Buea recently visited the College of Medicine – Phoenix to discuss an extension of the Cameroon-Arizona Partnership with other Arizona universities. Gregory Halle-Ekane, MD, vice dean of Research and Collaboration at the University of Buea, and Jane-Francis Akoachere, PhD, met with representatives from UA, Creighton University, Phoenix Children’s Hospital, AT Still University School of Osteopathic Medicine and Midwestern University.

“This is a critical matter,” Dr. Halle-Ekane said. “The maternal mortality rate is astronomical. This partnership and grant came at the right moment and it will really make a difference. Having just one more obstetrician in Cameroon has the capability of influencing the outcome of morbidity and saving a disaster from happening.”

Since the partnership began, Dr. Brady along with physicians and residents who are part of the Cameroon-Arizona partnership have taken multiple trips to Cameroon to teach classroom and bedside education and help run a cervical cancer screening and prevention clinic. The grant funded by the World Bank will empower the Cameroon-Arizona partnership to fully embrace its vision: residency education in Cameroon.

“The grant is a wonderful collaboration with already positive effects because of the outreach efforts,” Dr. Akoachere said. “It is a blessing to Cameroon.”

The World Health Organization estimates that about 830 women die each day from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. Nearly 99 percent of all maternal deaths occur in developing countries.

The program is part of a larger coalition of partnerships under the leadership of Frank Anderson, MD, an OB/GYN professor at University of Michigan that share the vision of reducing the maternal mortality rate in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Cameroon-Arizona partnership is based on a validated model exemplified by a collaboration between two universities in Ghana and the University of Michigan. The University of Ghana and Kwame Nkrumah University partnered with the University of Michigan in the 1980s to develop residency programs in the West African nation, pushing back against the model of overseas training that can lead to a “brain drain,” where skilled African physicians relocate to other countries. In this program, more than 140 physicians have been trained in OB/GYN, with a vast majority staying in Ghana.

The training program will take four years to complete. The first cohort of doctors will consist of five residents. The partnership goal is to be sustaining, where doctors who have completed their residency will go on to teach the next cohort all while creating a more sustainable health care system for obstetrics and gynecology.

If you are interested in donating or finding out how to become involved with the Cameroon-Arizona partnership, visit the program’s website or contact Dr. Brady.