In the three years since its establishment at the university, DukeEngage, the civic engagement program for undergraduates, has attracted more than 1,500 student applications since 2007-08. More than 800 students have participated in service around the world since DukeEngage began.
DukeEngage has also attracted faculty into its leader ranks. Their reasons include being inspired by a connection to their research, an opportunity to work with students or a chance to enhance their teaching back at Duke.
Dr. Alex Cho is an assistant professor of medicine who works with Chancellor for Health Affairs Dr. Victor Dzau on special projects related to health policy and new models of care. Cho got involved with DukeEngage through collaborations with entrepreneurial Duke students and in partnership with a Ugandan medical colleague in search of resources and support for a new hospital in Uganda. Below, Cho responds to questions about his involvement in the development of DukeEngage in Uganda.
Q. The DukeEngage in Uganda program is being offered again in 2010. How would you characterize the success of the program thus far and what are you planning to do differently in 2010?
The program has exceeded anything that I could have reasonably expected, and this success has everything to do with the participating students' engagement in, ownership of, and ongoing commitment to the partnership with Dr. Benon Mugerwa and the Mayanja Memorial Hospital Foundation. The students also established a campus organization, the Progressive Health Partnership (PHP), to help sustain and augment this work between DukeEngage trips.
This summer, the antenatal outreach and follow up that was the focus of this past year's project will continue in some form. However, in the focus groups that the students conducted with rural residents, access to clean drinking water was cited again and again as an issue. So this summer's project will also include piloting sustainable approaches to increase clean water access, probably through the use of rainwater collection systems. Another major aspiration of the program is to collaborate with others at Duke working in that region of Africa. And so I am happy to report that Dr. Christopher Kigongo, a Ugandan physician now working at Duke and part of a Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI) project in Uganda, has agreed to co-lead this program.
Q. Several Duke students were a driving force behind the development of this particular DukeEngage program. Can you elaborate on how you got involved and worked with these students?
In 2007, Chancellor Dzau established the Global PLUS program, housed in the Duke Global Health Institute, to donate surplus medical equipment in support of university faculty members' global health projects. One of the inspirations for the effort was the efforts of neurosurgeon Michael Haglund, M.D., to upgrade the surgical capabilities in terms of both training and equipment at New Mulago Hospital in Kampala, Uganda.
In 2008, Dr. Benon Mugerwa, a Ugandan OB/GYN physician, came to the United States to procure donated or discounted medical equipment for his hospital and foundation in Mbarara, in southwest Uganda. I knew of Ben through a Ugandan friend of mine from medical school. I told Ben about the Global PLUS program and arranged for him to visit Duke.
Around the same time, Wenjing Liu, a medical student member of the DGHI's Global Health Working Group (GHWG), introduced me to first-year undergraduates Josh Greenberg and co-founder Eddie Zhang, who had become interested in the distribution of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) for the prevention of malaria, and wanted to pursue a long-term project along these lines in a to-be-determined location.
So when Ben arrived at Duke, he was able to meet with both Dr. Haglund and with Josh, Eddie, and a couple of other undergraduates, among others. Those meetings launched this nascent partnership. Josh and Eddie, along with students Becky Agostino and Lauren Weinberger, then formed an official student group: Progressive Health Partnership, to recruit others to work on this project, and fundraise. And together we applied to become a DukeEngage program, and had our proposal accepted. To this day it still blows me away that Josh and Eddie had this vision as first-year undergraduates, and found so many other committed undergraduates to join them. I think that's a testament to the kinds of students who come to Duke and to the resources made available here to support them.
Q. What do you hope DukeEngage students come away with after completing the DukeEngage program in Uganda?
I hope they come away humbled but inspired by the example of our partner in Uganda, Dr. Mugerwa, and his team, and by the frontline providers and volunteers who are working against great odds to do what they can to improve the health status of rural Ugandans. And inspired, too, by what a group of students can accomplish in a relatively short span, while being realistic about the long-term commitment and partnerships needed to achieve lasting change. I also hope they gain some perspective, and motivation to do what they can to change things, as well as learn about themselves, and about how to get things done, both here at home and abroad. These aren't things I can claim to have or know myself, or to have fully experienced by any means, but things that the experience itself can give them, if they are open and willing to take risks.
Q. What has your involvement in this program meant to you?
One of the projects I am working on concerns innovation in health care delivery coming out of developing countries; having connected with an innovator such as Dr. Mugerwa has given me invaluable perspective. I think I've also grown as a teacher and as a person. This isn't something I would have imagined myself doing even a couple of years ago, and so just as DukeEngage gives students opportunities they wouldn't otherwise have, I've been given a very similar opportunity.