Global oncology training and Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
Medical students at Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine are invaluable partnerships with faculty and participate in formal global health programs connected through the Center for Health Equity as well as more opportunistic collaborations related to the Dartmouth Cancer Center. Students are encouraged to reach out to faculty to explore opportunities to get involved.
Megan Bullock Freed, RN, worked closely with Dartmouth Cancer Center rehabilitation scientist Kathleen Lyons, ScD, and Suyapa Bejarano, MD, our partnering colleague from La Liga Contra Cancer in Honduras, to test the hypothesis that a telephone-delivered palliative care program for symptom management of patients undergoing chemotherapy in Honduras would improve well-being and allow patients to continue chemotherapy uninterrupted. Megan's pre-Geisel experience as a nurse in a chemotherapy infusion center and fluent Spanish made her a valuable team member from the beginning. Funded by the Arthur Gold Foundation through the Dartmouth Dickey Center for Global Health, Megan spent the summer implementing the study at La Liga Contra Cancer in San Pedro Sula Honduras.
Thomas Flynn III, MD, and Charlene Dunaway Altamirano, PhD, connected with Cancer Center Member Mark Spaller PhD at the beginning of a 2-year investigation into development and testing of an educational intervention to decrease Honduran farmers' dermal exposure to agricultural chemicals. In addition to a term-long elective in Dr. Spaller's chemistry lab where they developed and tested a fluorescent dye that would be used in the educational intervention, Tom and Charlene were onsite twice in Honduras launching the study, implementing the intervention, and returning to gather post-intervention data months later.
Related publications
Bejarano SA, Freed ME, Zeron D, Medina R, Zuniga-Moya JC, Kennedy LS, Bruce ML, Zubkoff L, Bakitas MA, Lyons KD Feasibility of a Symptom Management Intervention for Honduran Adults Undergoing Chemotherapy. Western Journal of Nursing Research (2019).
Flynn III TG, Dunaway CM, LaRochelle EPM, Zuniga J, Barahona Campos R, Reyes García S, Cervinski MA, Spaller MR, Romano ME, Kennedy LS, Bejarano SA, Lyons KD, Tsongalis GJ, Huyck K, Reducing dermal exposure to agrochemical carcinogens using a fluorescent dye-based intervention among subsistence farmers in rural Honduras, World Cancer Congress / UICC, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2018).