(Des Moines, IA) – Des Moines University has moved into new territory for medical training by expanding international opportunities for students and faculty.
Yogesh Shah, M.D., has been named associate dean for global health. Dr. Shah is associate program director of the Mercy/Mayo Family Medicine Residency Program at Mercy Hospital Medical Center in Des Moines and medical director of DMU’s Geriatric Education Center.
In this newly created position, Dr. Shah oversees DMU’s Global Health program. The initiative focuses on identifying international rotation opportunities, developing medical mission sites, offering a global health elective and exploring a partnership with Medicine for Mali, a nonprofit medical humanitarian organization. DMU is responding to a growing interest in international medicine – nationally, 20 percent of all medical students go oversees during their medical education. The international rotations and mission trips will provide greater breadth of clinical experiences than students can gain within the U.S. alone. The first group of students and faculty to participate in the new Global Health program traveled to Belize in early July for a medical mission trip.
Medicine for Mali was founded by Stephen DeVore, D.O., DMU class of ’90, to provide medical care to the people of Mali, West Africa, the third-poorest country in the world. Dr. DeVore and a group of health professionals have made eight medical humanitarian aid trips to Mali since 2000. The arrangement with DMU includes a feasibility study to investigate international medical experiences for students and faculty, providing care to people of Mali and assessing Medicine for Mali’s potential to create a self-sustaining medical facility in Mali. Dr. DeVore has also been named associate professor of family medicine at DMU.
