Announcing a new global health scholars program for African Physicians

Program funded by an independent educational grant from Pfizer will foster health equity and community building through bidirectional learning partnerships

The Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health (CIGH) launched a new Stanford Global Health African Scholars Program on Nov. 1 to promote health equity, capacity-strengthening, and unique focused learning between African medical institutions and Stanford.

The three-year program will fund 24 mid-career physicians from African countries to travel to Stanford for a six-week period, gaining a specific skill set the African scholars have identified. At the same time, they will enrich learning at Stanford by sharing their expertise with the Stanford CIGH community. They will then return to their home countries to conduct a year-long clinical improvement project focused on the skill set they acquired. A unique feature of the program is that Pfizer will then provide a grant to the scholar’s home institution to implement a project that uses their new skills. The program is funded through an independent educational grant from Pfizer and managed by CIGH, in partnership with the Stanford Center for Continuing Medical Education (Stanford CME).

This program builds on CIGH’s longstanding and successful Stanford-Yale Global Scholars program, which sends US trainees to partner sites in low- and middle-income countries to train and work alongside local clinicians. CIGH is excited to reciprocate by hosting African physicians at Stanford, advancing global health equity through true bidirectional partnerships, in which both partners learn and benefit.

“As we address the legacy of colonization in global health, it’s imperative to promote equity and bilaterality, providing opportunities for our partners to train at Stanford,” said Michele Barry, Senior Associate Dean of Global Health at Stanford and CIGH’s director.