Global Health
Leadership Office

General Global Health Leadership Information

UIC College of Nursing Selected for U.S. Academic Consortium in Rwanda

April 3, 2012 (Chicago, Illinois)

The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to strengthening integrated health systems in the developing world and expanding access to care and treatment for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. CHAI was instrumental in developing an academic consortium of six colleges of nursing and eight colleges of medicine in the U.S. to improve nursing, dental, and medical education along with human resources in Rwanda. U.S. schools are expected to send a total of 100 faculty members per year (54 medical doctors, 42 nurses/midwives, 2 health management, and 2 dentists) for the next seven years. This is the largest cooperative global health effort ever undertaken between universities in the developed and developing world. The Rwandan Ministry of Health is in charge of this CHAI Human Re-sources for Health (HRH) Program.

The University of Illinois at Chicago College of Nursing (UIC CON) was selected as one of six schools of nursing from the U.S., and Dr. Mi Ja Kim, former Dean of CON and Executive Director of the CON's Global Health Leadership Office, is leading the UIC's efforts in recruiting and coordinating the program with the goal of creating a world class nursing and midwifery education system in Rwanda. UIC CON has recruited six certified nurse-midwives (CNM) and two nursing faculty members who are projected to leave for Rwanda on August 1, 2012 for 11 months. These individuals will be teaching and mentoring Rwandan nurses in schools of nursing as well as in hospitals. Two of the UIC nursing-midwifery faculty members will serve as Curriculum Advisor and as Professional Standards Advisor to the Rwandan Ministry of Health. The other six faculty members will serve either as an Advisor to a Director of a Rwandan school of nursing or as a teacher/mentor in the hospitals.

Dr. Mi Ja Kim attended the HRH Academic Consortium meeting in Rwanda this past February along with representatives from five other U.S. Schools of Nursing. The Honorable Minister Dr. Agnes Binagwaho chaired the meeting and over 140 faculty and staff attended including 66 from the U.S.

Collaborating with UIC CON are nursing schools from New York University, Duke, Howard, and the Universities of Texas at Houston and Maryland. Participating medical schools are Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, Duke and the Universities of Virginia, Colorado, Maryland and Texas at Houston.