The providers within GHI at Children’s National are passionately working to improve the care of pediatric patients in low- and middle-resource settings, as well as here at home. This requires collaborative research, a key goal of GHI. Such collaboration helps minimize risk, strengthen regulatory compliance, and ensure the health and safety of both global health patients and providers. GHI provides crucial oversight by connecting researchers and faculty members working to advance international standards of care.
Research at the Global Health Initiative
Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought. — Albert Szent-Györgyi
Faculty Spotlight
Dr. Doug Postels has embarked on his annual journey to Malawi where he provides pediatric neurological care, does research on malaria, and helps train pediatric residents. Join him on his travels and get a closer look at the global health work Children’s National providers are engaged in around the world.
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Heads or Tails?
And away he goes! Kind of. Working in global health requires travel. And travel is supposed to be fun, correct? Well, it usually is. Our research group has a well-worn flight route from the USA to Malawi that takes us through South Africa. We survive the long plane ride(s) to Johannesburg, spend the night in […]
Lagniappe
Though some places on earth are challenging to love, I have always enjoyed living and working in Blantyre, Malawi. I first visited in 2008 as a Visiting Professor at the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, teaching neurology to their pediatric residents. I’ve worked here every year since. Blantyre is the hilly commercial capital of southern Malawi. […]
Paylines
There are many advantages to working in clinical research, mainly intellectual. To me the best part of the job is thinking up interesting ideas, figuring out ways that one’s ideas can be found to be correct or not (called “hypothesis testing”), and hoping that what you discover might eventually lead to changes in human health. Like most […]
Differences
Working in a place that has a different culture than my own is fascinating. My views of the differences between the way Malawians and Americans approach daily life and each other has evolved over the last 13 years I’ve been working here. To me, one of the worst things foreigners do when arriving to a new location […]
A Formidable Foe
While in Malawi, I work at the Blantyre Malaria Project. For the last 30 years, the Project has been studying and working to find new therapies for one disease, cerebral malaria. From a public health standpoint, malaria is the most important parasitic disease of humankind. (A parasite is a multi-celled organism that causes disease.) Half of the people […]
Happy Place
I hope that everyone has their own Happy Place, a spot for relaxation, where the air is clear, and starting anew is possible. At different times in my life this has been inside a good book, walking through an art museum, or watching a wonderful film. When I’m in Blantyre, it’s Michiru. Michiru is the tallest of […]
Famished
The medical problems that are treated in Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital fall into two primary categories: those caused by infections and everything else. In clinical tropical medicine, the great majority of attention is focused on infectious diseases. And true, here there is a lot of tuberculosis, HIV and malaria, the most important bacterial, viral, and parasitic […]
Grateful
Often, when health care workers arrive to work in sub-Saharan Africa, one of their first reactions is to the lack of medical tests and technology to which they are accustomed. Physicians sometimes think they need these to do their jobs. It’s a bit shocking to discover medical tests are simply not here. Neurology in the USA is […]
Mesmerized
After 11 days of clinical service on the Pediatric Research Ward, I was ready for a break. My friends Karen, Jill, and Carl were going to Mvuu Lodge in Liwonde National Park for the weekend. Did I want to come? Uh, yeah! Getting out of the city and into nature was restorative. As a bonus, we had a dramatic, fascinating, […]
A Path
Before I began working at Children’s National in Washington DC in 2017, I was at Michigan State University (MSU). Michigan State is where I transitioned from a full-time pediatric neurologist into a researcher in global health. MSU, like most places of employment, had its ups and downs, but more ups than downs. One especially enjoyable aspect of […]
News
Publication: Decolonizing Global Health
Dr. John Kulesa, a former REACH Resident at Children’s National and current fellow in hospitalist medicine published an article on decolonizing global health in BMJ Global Health. Co-authored with Nana Afua Brantuo at the University of Maryland, College Park, the article points out the complications of educational partnership between high-income and low- and middle-income countries […]
Immigration Fellowship, American Academy of Pediatrics – Applications due Sunday, November 14th!
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is seeking applicants for its newly established Immigration Pediatric Fellowship. This prestigious one-year paid fellowship will support a pediatrician in contributing thirteen hours per week to AAP’s joint project with Migration Policy Institute (MPI) entitled, Strengthening Medical and Mental Health Services for Unaccompanied Children in Communities. This fellow will provide critical […]
Noteworthy Neurology: Children’s National Neurologists working in Malawi Recognized in Innovation District Article
CN GHI Global Health Leaders Drs. Doug Postels and Tesfaye Zelleke are recognized in an Innovation District Article published earlier this month. Both providers are focused on central issues in global pediatric neurological care. Dr. Postels will be the Principal Investigator for a Phase I/IIa clinical trial for the pediatric cerebral malaria drug, DON, in […]
CN GHI Cardiology Team Publishes Groundbreaking RHD study in Lancet Global Health
This publication in Lancet Global Health (Impact factor 27) from Dr. Craig Sable’s $3.7 Million AHA Rheumatic Heart Disease Network grant includes several current and former Children’s National faculty and fellows in multiple divisions (Cardiology, Neurology Infectious Disease and Dermatology). It is the first population-based study to estimate the incidence of acute rheumatic fever in […]
Funding Opportunities
Internal Funding Opportunities
Maximizing Impact: Explorations in Global Health Pilot Awards
- An award program designed for researchers to collect pilot data to apply for external funding of pediatric global health projects
- Awards ranging from$1,000 to $30,000+ are awarded annually to Children’s National employees and their collaborators
- Learn more about the program, past awardees and how to apply here.