Emory surgical resident and global surgery fellow Constance Shreckengost, MD, PhD, is a 2021-2022 recipient of the prestigious VECD (Vanderbilt-Emory-Cornell-Duke) Fogarty Global Health Fellowship, which will support her study of breast cancer pathology in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, and her implementation of immunohistochemistry and low-cost, smartphone-based digital whole slide imaging to enhance capacity at the Oncology Institute of Eastern Bolivia.
One of six consortia that comprise the Fogarty Global Health Program for Fellows and Scholars, VECD provides mentored global health research training opportunities in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) for pre- and post-doctoral candidates from the United States and LMICs. The program is sponsored by the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health with support from partners across the NIH.
In addition to awarding this fellowship to Dr. Shreckengost, the VECD and NIH have inaugurated the Universidad Católica Boliviana San Pablo, in collaboration with Clínica Foianini Hospital and the Oncology Institute of Eastern Bolivia, as an official Fogarty Fellowship training site for future fellows from both the United States and Bolivia.
While in Santa Cruz, Dr. Shreckengost will also participate in the efforts of the Emory Trauma and Surgical Initiative in Bolivia to develop evidence-based policy and interventions to enhance surgical and trauma care in the country. As the current Emory global surgery fellow, Dr. Shreckengost will build on the work of the initiative's previous global surgery fellows, current general surgery residents Erica Ludi, MD, and Alexandra Reitz, MD, MPH, to strengthen local surgical capacity in Santa Cruz and the surrounding region by developing a trauma registry at Clínica Foianini and other local hospitals, leading courses and workshops in trauma first response and Advanced Trauma Life Support, and developing laparoscopy courses for Bolivian surgeons and residents.
What was supposed to be Dr. Shreckengost's first year of work in Bolivia in 2020 — funded by an Emory GO-TRAVEL Award — was postponed by travel restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. While waiting for traveling conditions to improve, she contributed to the multicenter, international Panamerican Trauma Society-COVIDTrach study, which examined outcomes after tracheostomy in COVID-19 positive patients; served as the research and translation coordinator for the Emory Global Perioperative Health Group’s (EGPHG) electronic COVID-19 Community & Healthcare Facility Checklists manual for LMICs; and collaborated with Dr. Ludi, Dr. Reitz, and Bolivian physicians on the design and creation of a virtual laparoscopic basic skills course for Bolivian residents and surgeons.
"I am excited to see these projects to fruition as I begin transitioning my focus to the work involved with the Fogarty Fellowship," she says.
Dr. Shreckengost's track-record in global health also includes investigations of HIV/AIDS policies in India, studies of women's health and nutrition in rural Haiti, researching educational systems in Senegal as a Fulbright Scholar, and teaching activities with the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative.
Her current mentors are Stanford University general and trauma surgeon Thomas Weiser, MD, MPH, who will advise her efforts to introduce the Lifebox Clean Cut surgical infection prevention program in Bolivia; Marissa Boeck, MD, MPH, a trauma surgeon and surgical critical care intensivist at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital who is also committed to building Bolivia's hospital-based trauma registry; oral and maxillofacial surgeon Steven Roser, DMD, MD, founder of the EGPHG; and Esteban Foianini, MD, medical director of Clínica Foianini.