Michelle Telfer, CNM, MSN, MPH is in the process of establishing a collaboration between Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda and the Yale School of Nursing (YSN). The Yale School of Medicine already has an existing partnership for medical students and faculty. The new collaboration would allow for a YSN faculty member to be based in Kampala and allow 2-3 YSN students to go there to do research and a six-week clinical rotation. Jocelyn Rinne ’17 spent a summer in Kampala doing research with funding through the Downs Fellowship, the Lindsey Fellowship, and funding from the YSN research office. She studied the challenges of practicing as a midwife and the training of new midwives in a high-volume setting. She surveyed the midwives and students and interviewed the midwives at Mulago Specialized Hospital Maternal and Neonatal Center. Jocelyn’s time in Uganda helped her put her identity as a midwife into a global context, and she hopes to bring experience of working in an unfamiliar setting and connecting through the common language of midwifery to her work in the U.S.
Photo: Michelle Telfer; Dr. Rose Chalo Nabiyre, Dean of School of Health Sciences at Makerere University; and Dr. Tracy Rabin, Co-Director of the Makerere University/Yale University collaboration.