Pathology in Southwest Uganda: Teaching, Mentoring, and Capacity Building

Abstract

MUST, which began 26 years ago as the second medical faculty in Uganda, hosts the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Global Health Collaborative, through which Seed Global Health volunteers come to train and work with Ugandan medical and nursing personnel. As a temporary employee of the pathology department of MGH, I came to Mbarara to contribute to Seed’s effort for the academic year 2014-2015. My colleagues at MUST include teachers and practitioners from Cuba, Great Britain, Germany, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and organizations such as Seed and the Peace Corps Response, the latter part of the Global Health Service Partnership. Damaris Laffita, professor of pathology at MUST and an excellent, patient, and kind colleague, is the only full-time onsite pathologist at the university. She combines a knowledge base and technical vocabulary familiar to North American pathologists with experience in making defensible diagnoses in resource constrained settings, an advantage for practice in Africa.