Interview with Dr. Lejeune Lockett, CDU Director of the Office of International Affairs( continued)
can be very similar to what you see in South Africa or in Cuba, or in other places. Then also knowing that populations can be very mobile, and end up right here in LA.
I try to help our students to understand how their health, geography, and location are so interconnected, so that for us to be productive, meaningful, active citizens in this world, it behooves us to be connected as much to what’ s happening outside of our daily spheres of operation.
You are part of a consortium addressing the issues that you’ ve spoken about. How does the University work in tandem with the other medical schools?
The historically black medical schools all came together in 2017 to work on projects that are funded by the US State Department, PEPFAR specifically, to work in Zambia and Malawi. We are working on HIV prevention, patient treatments, and it’ s very exciting because we’ re all taking a piece of a larger pie, and then working with the population. Howard University working with adults that are HIV positive and providing treatment and care. Meharry is working with pregnant women and their children, Morehouse is doing telemedicine and providing mental healthcare and other kinds of support.
We are working with adolescent girls and young women between the ages of 15 and 24. Some are HIV positive, some are negative, but all are at risk. So that’ s how we work together. We also work together to advocate for more research, and more resources for our universities to do the work that we do. Because historically, the international global health space has been controlled by predominantly white institutions. In my own career path, I have often been the only one at the table. You know, the only person of color or the African American. We as HBCUs are coming together to try to change that trend. We are on the ground, making a difference and at the table with other universities and other institutions that are doing this work. We also advocate for more financial resources to do the work.
We also have something to contribute, and we have the cultural competency to work in African and Caribbean settimgs at a level that may be very significantly different than some of the predominantly white institutions do.
Last question. The world is very big. And it’ s a challenge to a small yet dedicated coalition that you’ ve just described. So how does technology play a role in the service outreach to achieve your measurable outcomes and what additional tools might come to mind?
We have over 100 people that are on staff in Zambia, My contact is with them every day, even if it’ s through emails, telephone calls, or Zoom meetings. And that’ s been extremely important to be able to provide that technical assistance and oversight from a distance while we were enduring the pandemic, whereas some institutions were really struggling with that. Fortunately, we already been doing that for years prior to the pandemic, so I think in that case, we didn’ t miss a beat.
But that’ s essential to the work that we do. The other is telemedicine and portable devices. So, for example, while we are in the Dominican Republic, one thing that we are looking at most recently is our collaboration with the Radtech program to find a way to get portable X ray machines and ultrasound machines out in the field when we do our mobile clinics.
We are serving Haitian migrant workers that are in the Dominican sugarcane fields. When we go out with the Light A Candle Foundation, we provide mobile clinics. Often, the physicians must make diagnoses with very limited information. We are looking at ways to be more productive and working to see if there’ s a way that we can find funding to bring this technology out to the field to interact with patients.
CDU College of Medicine | PG. 19