To continue our international partner series, we would like to introduce the Bugando Medical Centre as our official partner in Tanzania.
Tanzania
Tanzania is situated on the eastern side of Africa with a population of approximately 58 million people, making it Africa’s fifth largest country by population. With only one physician per 50,000 patients, Tanzania has one of the lowest ratios of physicians to patients worldwide.
Bugando Medical Centre
Bugando Medical Centre was built by the Catholic Church and officially opened in 1971. Today the Medical Centre is a referral, consultant and university teaching hospital for the Lake and Western zones of Tanzania. It is situated along the shores of Lake Victoria in Mwanza City, the second largest city in Tanzania and the capital of the Lake and Western regions. Bugando Medical Centre has over 950 beds and employs approximately 1,300 people. There are 18 clinical departments and six administrative departments. A new radiotherapy center will be opening in the near future in the state-of-the-art oncology building. This will be the second radiotherapy center in the country, making the hospital a regional hub for cancer treatment. The aspiration to build a medical college in Western Tanzania was put forth in July of 1994. In September of 2003, the Catholic University College of Health Sciences opened (becoming Weill Bugando School of Medicine in 2007). The Medical School was named in honor of benefactors Joan and Sandford Weill.
OMI and Bugando Medical Centre Partnership
In 2008, the Bugando Medical Centre in Tanzania (Weill Cornell Bugando) became an official partner of the Open Medical Institute. For more than 12 years now, Tanzanian fellows have been participating in various OMI programs; more than 260 fellowships and 32 observerships have taken place since then.
Our local coordinator in Tanzania, Lucy Mogele, offers valuable information and support for physicians who are interested in the OMI Programs.
“I attended the OMI seminar on Maternal and Infant Health in Salzburg in 2019. It was a great experience: a good learning environment, nice accommodations, a beautiful city and very experienced faculty. I met friendly and cooperative fellows from different countries around the globe. The topics discussed were well elaborated with practical, up-to-date tips for our daily work, delivered in such a way that everyone can understand. Fellows were given the chance to present cases and it was nice having the chance to learn from each other. We did the pre-seminar and post-seminar test and had a tremendous improvement after the training. We also had time to explore the city of Salzburg and its culture/history. We had very nice and delicious meals for the whole week at Schloss Arenberg. We also had a nice music concert during the last evening of the seminar. I recommend these seminars to physicians from all around the world.”