Campus & Beyond How Cornell Has Helped Tanzania Train (Many!) More MDs Stories You May Like New Book Chronicles Cornell’s International Impact ‘Expect the Unexpected,’ Fauci Tells Weill Cornell Medicine Students Pulitzer Prize-winning Alumna Explores the Human Stories Behind Global Migration The more than two-decade-old partnership between Weill Cornell Medicine and a school in the East African nation has benefitted all Editor’s note: This story was condensed from a multimedia feature in the Cornell Chronicle that’s the first in a five-part series. By Susan Kelley; photography by Noël Heaney The emergency room had a bed, a desk, and a chair—and no ER doctor to serve it. Entire wards were filled with hundreds of children suffering from Burkitt lymphoma, a childhood cancer common in East and Central Africa, as well as tuberculosis, HIV, and congenital heart defects. “But,” recalls Dr. Dan Fitzgerald, “there was not a single pediatrician in the hospital.” The year was 2005, and Fitzgerald and his colleagues had been invited to Bugando Medical Centre in Mwanza, Tanzania, by the newly formed Weill Bugando School of Medicine, part of an institution that would become the Catholic University of Health and Allied Sciences (CUHAS), to assist with the school’s development. Bugando Medical Centre, the university’s teaching hospital, serves more than 15 million people—a population the size of NYC, Los Angeles, and Chicago combined. As the region’s referring hospital, it gets the sickest of the sick. Some patients travel two days by boat across Lake Victoria to get there. Dr. Dan Fitzgerald (center) with Weill Bugando PhD students. “Even the director of the hospital at the time said, ‘We’re a big teaching hospital, but we’re staffed like we’re a small dispensary out in the village,’” says Fitzgerald, the B.H. Kean Professor in Tropical Medicine and director of Weill Cornell Medicine’s Center for Global Health. That’s because Tanzania, famous for Mount Kilimanjaro and iconic nature reserves such as the Serengeti, had a dubious distinction: the fewest physicians of nearly any nation in the world. In 2002, just one doctor served every 50,000 people. (In comparison, the U.S. had nearly 130 doctors per 50,000 people in 2000.) A partnership between Weill Cornell Medicine and the Tanzanian school hasn’t just helped Weill Bugando graduate more than 2,220 MDs since it was founded in 2003. It has also enabled both medical schools to improve their students’ education, boost healthcare in Tanzania with strategies applicable to the U.S., and conduct innovative research on diseases that affect people around the world. “Fast forward 20 years: now there is just an amazing group of physician educators in multiple departments—in pediatrics, surgery, obstetrics, gynecology,” Fitzgerald says. “And Weill Bugando School of Medicine is now recognized as really one of the best medical schools in East Africa.” Weill Bugando School of Medicine is now recognized as really one of the best medical schools in East Africa. Dr. Dan Fitzgerald Although Weill Bugando is not part of Weill Cornell Medicine, they share a common philanthropist—Sanford “Sandy” Weill ’55—and a memorandum of understanding to exchange faculty and students, and to collaborate on education, research, and patient care. “The quality of care is improving, and this benefit goes now to the community here in Mwanza,” says Dr. Stephen Mshana, professor of clinical microbiology and infectious disease and deputy vice chancellor of planning, finance, and administration at CUHAS. The two institutions came together in the late 1990s, when Mwanza’s religious leaders wanted better healthcare for their city. Mwanza is Tanzania’s second-largest city, with a population of 1.1 million, a bit smaller than Dallas. Perched at the edge of Lake Victoria, the second-largest lake in the world, Mwanza is known for its delicious tilapia; fishing is a major occupation. Enormous rock formations dotting the landscape give it the nickname Rock City. The city of Mwanza and Lake Victoria, seen from the rooftop of Bugando Medical Centre. Before Weill Bugando was founded, “the medical care in that region was terrible,” says Dr. Estomih Mtui, a professor of anatomy in radiology at Weill Cornell Medicine who is from Tanzania and acts as a crucial bridge between the two schools. “People were dying of schistosomiasis, conditions you never see in the U.S., and malaria and malnutrition.” At the time, Dr. Peter Le Jacq, MD ’81, a Maryknoll priest, had been working at Bugando Medical Centre since 1987. City leaders asked him if any medical schools in the U.S. would share their curriculum. The then-dean of Weill Cornell Medicine, Dr. Antonio Gotto, obliged. And he pledged full support, with the backing of Sandy Weill, who then chaired Weill Cornell Medicine’s board. Le Jacq played a pivotal role in facilitating the partnership. “It was a Tanzanian vision, and their confidence was infectious,” Fitzgerald says, “and it just helped us keep going, working with them and following their lead.” Dr. Estomih Mtui with a visitor in his Weill Cornell office. The collaboration is one of several—in Brazil, Haiti, and India—operating through Weill Cornell Medicine’s Center for Global Health. The programs aim to develop innovations and improve health among the world’s poor. Over time, Weill Bugando and Weill Cornell Medicine collaborated to train faculty members, adapt the curriculum, and launch a residency program where Weill Bugando students can earn specialty certifications. Most recently, Weill Bugando created a PhD program in which doctors conduct innovative research on the diseases they see in their clinics and that affect millions around the world. From the beginning, a steady stream of rotations and visits fueled the partnership. Weill Bugando and Weill Cornell Medicine collaborated to train faculty members, adapt the curriculum, and launch a residency program where Weill Bugando students can earn specialty certifications. Mshana spent four months in NYC in 2001 as one of the first 10 faculty members who served as teaching assistants while working with Weill Cornell Medicine faculty to develop the curriculum and learn to teach basic sciences. Stories You May Like New Book Chronicles Cornell’s International Impact ‘Expect the Unexpected,’ Fauci Tells Weill Cornell Medicine Students Mshana was especially interested in the problem-based learning approach he saw there—in classrooms and also during rounds. He subsequently integrated it at Weill Bugando. “I found it very good, because it’s making the student think critically and connecting with the clinical practice early,” Mshana says. “It’s not like they are just given everything. They have to find the solution on their own.” Dr. Benson Kidenya, MS ’11, head of biochemistry at Weill Bugando, spent several years going back and forth between the two institutions while earning a master’s degree in clinical epidemiology and health services research at Weill Cornell Medicine. He earned his PhD at Weill Bugando in fields related to the epidemiology, genetic diversity, and drug resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in northwestern Tanzania. In NYC, he noted how students freely participated in class discussions—very different from the lectures-only model in Tanzania, where students are mostly silent during class. He now uses the approach in his own classrooms. He is one of many Weill Bugando graduates now in faculty and leadership positions at their alma mater. “I’m trying to make my students engaged, enjoy the session, and also be very interactive, ask questions, express their opinions,” he says. “Because for me, I say learning is fun. You have to enjoy the process of learning, and that’s what I also enjoyed as I was a student in Weill Cornell.” I’m trying to make my students engaged, enjoy the session, and also be very interactive, ask questions, express their opinions. Dr. Benson Kidenya, MS ’11 Faculty members continue to do rotations at each institution—to both teach and learn. For students, the cross-pollination provides a medical education that is “transformational,” says Dr. Rob Peck, associate professor of medicine and pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine and an adjunct associate professor at Weill Bugando in medicine and pediatrics. He has been instrumental in the partnership for 18 years, establishing Weill Bugando’s standard operating procedures, co-coordinating student and faculty exchanges, and advising graduate students. Students at Weill Bugando. “For our Tanzanian students coming to New York, they’re observing the future of medical care in Tanzania,” Peck says. “They are really going to be the leaders of medicine and research, and so they’re able to think about what is available in the U.S. and how that could be implemented in places like Tanzania." And, he says: “For our New York students, they’re getting to go to Tanzania and see what medicine is like in most other parts of the world.” In 2020, Mshana co-led a study asking a crucial question: where had Weill Bugando medical doctors and specialists ended up practicing between 2015 and 2020? The study found that 90% of graduates were employed—the majority at Bugando. “The striking feature from that study is that we have really helped to concentrate medical doctors in the Mwanza region,” Mshana says. “We are proud of that.” The study shows other graduates dispersed throughout the country. As part of the curriculum, students now do rotations in rural and less-resourced areas outside Mwanza. “If they graduate and are posted there,” Mshana says, “it’s an environment they will be used to.” We have really helped to concentrate medical doctors in the Mwanza region. We are proud of that. Dr. Stephen Mshana Weill Bugando still faces challenges. It needs more funding for students with financial needs. It still lacks faculty members in core disciplines to expand educational programming. Nonetheless, the medical school now enrolls about 200 students every year, with a total annual enrollment of about 1,000. They include Mshana’s eldest daughter, 21-year-old Patricia Stephen Mshana, a third-year MD student. She was born in 2003—the same year Weill Bugando welcomed its first cohort of students. “I have seen all this growth, and I’m feeling happy that I have contributed something as a leader to the development of this institution,” Stephen Mshana says. “Really, my dream is to see Bugando transformed to a sustainable, developing institution, a situation which now will be there to stay.” This story and videos were developed and produced with support from Cornell University staffers Matt Fondeur, Lindsay France, Eduardo Merchán, and Ashley Osburn. Published March 3, 2025 Leave a Comment Cancel replyOnce your comment is approved, your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment * Name * Class Year Email * Save my name, email, and class year in this browser for the next time I comment. Δ Other stories You may like Alumni Meet the Voice of Big Red Men’s Ice Hockey (and Football!) 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