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Geisel Renews Partnership Agreement with Peruvian Hospital

(Left to right) Dartmouth representatives Anne Sosin (Dickey Center) and Lisa V. Adams (Geisel) celebrate the renewal of the partnership with Hospital Cayetano Heredia with the hospital director Dr. Aida Cecilia Rosa Palacios Ramirez (center), Dr. Manuel Diaz De Los Santos, and Dr. Raúl Acosta.

By Tim Dean

The Geisel School of Medicine has renewed its partnership agreement with Hospital Cayetano Heredia—a public university hospital in Lima, Peru, and one of the leading clinical teaching and research institutions in the country.

"For a number of years, we've been sending undergraduates and medical students to Peru to work with Dr. Raúl Acosta and it's been a fabulous experience for them," says Lisa V. Adams, MED '90, director of the Center for Health Equity and associate dean for global health at Geisel. "Dr. Acosta has been one of the best mentors that our students have had. He's very 'hands-on,' he gives them discrete and manageable projects to work on, so they're really contributing."

The five-year agreement reflects a collaboration of mutually beneficial projects that address a variety of health priorities in Peru, including ongoing research, capacity building, training, an exchange of faculty members and students, and builds on previous work that was started by Dartmouth and the hospital in 2013.

Adams and Acosta also talked about potential projects. "Dr. Acosta introduced us to partners at another hospital, and now we're looking at doing a policy project for the Ministry of Health on telehealth in conjunction with the Dickey Center's Global Health Policy Lab, which would involve pulling a team of students together to assess telehealth potential in the country," she says.

Adams also met with the medical school's leadership who are interested in starting a bilateral medical student exchange program.

Creating these kinds of reciprocal opportunities for students who are interested in international health enhances their readiness to work in an increasingly connected world, says Adams. "It's right in line with so many of Geisel's values—about having impact where we can, building partnerships, and training our medical students to take on some of the biggest challenges that we know are going to be facing health and healthcare in the future."