Three recent additions to the UK Department of Surgery faculty this summer represent a significant step forward in the department’s commitment to develop and expand its global surgery initiatives. It is progress that has mutual benefit potential for surgery faculty and residents at UK and its partner institutions in eastern Africa.
Brittany Wheelock, MD, Wanda Lam, MD, and Beth Stuebing, MD, became official members of the division of acute care surgery, trauma, and surgical critical care in June and July of 2024.
Technically, Dr. Wheelock was already a full-time faculty member, having opted to complete a second year as an instructor in the Surgical Critical Care Fellowship program. Earlier in the year, she committed to continue serving UK’s trauma patients as an assistant professor. She transitioned to her new appointment in July.
Along with her work as a UK Trauma team member, Dr. Wheelock joined Alexis Nickols, MD, and William B. Inabnet III, MD, MHA, FACS, MAMSE, the Johnston-Wright Endowed Professor and Chair of Surgery, for a two-week visit to the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka, Zambia in January as part of the American College of Surgeons H.O.P.E. program.
She and Dr. Nickols collaborated with UTH faculty to develop a critical care needs assessment. She also helped mentor the hospital’s general surgery residents in laparoscopic surgery fundamentals.
But this is not the only location where UK Surgery is involved.
In Malawi, a neighbor country to Zambia, Dr. Stuebing and Dr. Lam are faculty members at Nkhoma Mission Hospital, a medical center that began a General Surgery Residency program through an association with the Pan-African Academy of Christian Surgeons (PAACS).
In conjunction with a Program Letter of Agreement (PLA) between the surgery departments at UK and Nkhoma Hospital, Dr. Stuebing and Dr. Lam’s joint appointments as faculty with the two teaching hospitals were approved.
Dr. Lam completed a general surgery residency at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center / Case Western University in 2020. She matched into the Global Surgery Fellowship program at Loma Linda University Medical Center where, according to her curriculum vitae, she was trained in essential surgeries for working in a low resource setting.
Dr. Stuebing finished general surgery residency at Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island and a Trauma and Surgical Critical Care Fellowship at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida. An interesting parallel to her colleague, Dr. Stuebing earned her medical degree at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
Each joined the Nkhoma Mission Hospital faculty in 2021. The nascent General Surgery training program, overseen by the Pan-African Academy of Christian Surgeons (PAACS), admitted its first residents in 2022. In addition to being a key faculty member for the residency program, Dr. Beth, as she is known, also serves as medical director of critical care development.
“While the relationship between the UK and Nkhoma surgery programs is still a work in progress, the bi-directional exchange of faculty and ideas is already showing a great deal of promise,” commented Dr. William B. Inabnet III, the Johnston-Wright Endowed Professor and Chair of Surgery.
Dr. Stuebing and Dr. Lam, for example, spoke with UK trauma providers about the challenges of treating patients in low resource environments. In addition to sharing our respective cultures, residents from Malawi and Zambia can participate virtually in UK Surgery grand rounds and M&M discussions. UK surgery faculty function as visiting professors, sharing their expertise in subspecialty care.
Bi-directional faculty exchanges can be of particular importance for Nkhoma surgeons needing respite from the demands of working in a low resource surgical environment. It also allows them to maintain US credentials and connect with mainstream academia.
In the future, the PLA agreement will give UK surgery residents the option of a global surgery rotation while earning ACGME credits toward completion of their residency.
