The Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health (CIGH) on September 10 announced the inaugural scholars to its Stanford African Scholars in Global Health program.

The program, called SASH, launched in the fall of 2023 to address a deficit of bilateral global exchange programs in the US and improve health outcomes on the African continent. Open to mid-career physicians in senior leadership roles in low- or middle-income countries, SASH seeks to promote health equity, capacity-strengthening, and shared learning between African medical institutions and Stanford. Uniquely, SASH awards resources to scholars at the end of their Stanford stay to support the implementation of health improvement projects at their home institution.

Throughout 2025, SASH will host 24 African medical scholars over four cohorts at Stanford.

The program is run by CIGH, based at the Stanford School of Medicine, and supported by the Stanford Center for Continuing Medical Education and an independent educational grant from Pfizer.

The first 13 scholars were chosen among 450 applicants from 28 countries. These scholars —from 12 institutions in seven African countries — will form the first two cohorts, arriving at Stanford in January and April 2025. Another 11 scholars will be selected later this year.

This program builds on CIGH’s longstanding Stanford-Yale Global Health Scholars program, which sends US trainees to partner sites in low- and middle-income countries to work alongside local clinicians.

“We are excited to reciprocate the learning and insights our scholars have gained over the years by now hosting African physicians at Stanford,” said Michele Barry, MD, Director of CIGH. “We also have much to learn from these extraordinary visiting faculty scholars.”

Time spent working in other countries is a vital aspect of a global health practitioner’s training. It fosters cultural understanding, builds new relationships, and contributes to the exchange of skills and innovative ideas.

Yet a recent review of global health fellowship programs found that just five of 108 offered in the United States were open to candidates from low- and middle-income countries. SASH begins to address this imbalance by offering a dedicated training opportunity for African scholars in the US.

More than 450 applicants from 28 countries in Africa applied during the first round of recruitment, indicating the widespread interest in such a program.

The SASH team convened 17 Stanford School of Medicine faculty members spanning nine departments to support an extensive and thoughtful selection process. Finalists were paired with potential Stanford mentors and underwent a thorough multi-step application and interview process. Those whose projects showed the greatest potential for widespread impact on health outcomes, and who represented a diverse range of countries and specialties, were selected as scholars.

During their six weeks at Stanford, scholars will gain a specific skill set that they have identified to improve health outcomes at home. At the same time, they will enrich learning in the Stanford community by sharing their expertise and perspectives via lectures and in-person meetings.

Already, the application process has yielded new learning opportunities for Stanford faculty involved in the review. Faculty reviewer and Stanford Professor of Emergency Medicine Matthew Strehlow, MD, shared an insight he gained from interviewing Dr. Yewande Babalola, MBBS, an ophthalmologist from Nigeria whose project proposal focuses on ocular tuberculosis screening.

“I had no idea how common ocular tuberculosis was, both in Africa and globally,” he said. “I am definitely going to add this as a component to our many joint healthcare worker training programs across the globe.”

Dr. Babalola said she looks forward to acquiring in-depth knowledge about tuberculosis, uveitis, and ophthalmic research from her Stanford mentor, Dr. Quan Dong Nguyen, while also sharing knowledge and ideas with the broader Stanford community. “I am enthusiastic about interactions with Stanford faculty and staff and exchanging ideas on clinical practice and research in our different climes,” she said.

Stanford global health faculty who have worked in Africa expressed excitement about reciprocating the learning and experiences they’ve gained overseas.

Dr. Cybele Renault, MD, a clinical associate professor in Stanford Medicine’s Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine, has collaborated with SASH Scholar Dr. Ombeva Malande, MBChB, in an infectious diseases working group at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH) in Kenya since 2022. The group seeks to build an intensive antimicrobial stewardship program and develop an infectious diseases consult service to improve patient care and outcomes. CIGH supported Dr. Renault’s onsite work in Kenya alongside the MTRH team for several weeks on-site in 2022 and 2024, where she became familiar with challenges to implementing an antimicrobial stewardship program there.

Dr. Renault said she and members of a regional antimicrobial stewardship group, spanning Stanford, the Palo Alto VA, and other hospital systems south of San Francisco, enthusiastically anticipate collaborating with Dr. Malande while he is at Stanford. Dr. Malande hopes to gain hands-on antimicrobial stewardship skills such as auditing records and giving feedback to providers about prescription patterns, communicating effectively with providers about the importance of an antimicrobial stewardship program and the dangers of evolving antimicrobial resistance, and skills in data collection and analysis, particularly for quality improvement projects.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for us to collaboratively brainstorm solutions to challenges in implementing initiatives to curb antimicrobial resistance, both in the United States and Africa,” Dr. Renault said.

While each scholar’s program at Stanford will be customized to their specialty and identified need, their time might include: Observing clinical rounds related to their specialty, visiting laboratories, meeting and consulting about their project with interdisciplinary Stanford leaders of related medical programs, and receiving quality improvement instruction to support the implementation of their project. Appointed as visiting instructors, the scholars will also connect and network with global health and African studies communities across Stanford, offering lectures and learning opportunities to Stanford affiliates.

The learning and exchange of ideas will continue following the scholars’ departure from Stanford, as the scholars embark on a funded, year-long clinical improvement project with ongoing virtual Stanford mentorship. During this project, they’ll work to improve health outcomes at their home institution, focusing on the skills they acquired.

Cohorts three and four will be selected later this year and are expected to arrive at Stanford in the summer and fall of 2025. Learn more about SASH and sign up for program updates here.