For those of you who weren't able to make it to Dr. Kellerman's talk about medical care in third world countries - here's the general gist -

Dr. Kellerman is inviting you to come work with him in Uganda with the Batwas pygmies.

Whether you are a first year looking for something interesting to do with your last summer or a fourth year looking for a good way to spend the most expensive vacation you'll ever have, this may be an ideal opportunity for you.

Dr. Scott Kellerman and his wife Cynthia have been living with the tribe for over a year now. Dr. Kellerman has training in both surgery and family medicine, as well as tropical diseases - he uses this background to run clinics in areas which cannot be reached by regular transportation. Currently he and his wife are working closely with about 600 members of the 2,000 person tribe which has almost no access to healthcare. With the help of different groups from the US, this fall they will be building a school for the tribe and in the spring they will start construction on a 40-60 bed hospital.

Outside of the regular interest level in third world medicine, there are two particularly attractive features of this program, which has recently been approved for fourth year rotation credit by the Family and Community Medicine department:

1. Dr. Kellerman assures that medical students will have hands on experience with patients and will learn a great deal about tropical diseases and third world medicine within a short amount of time.

2. Funding is available

The funding is provided by the Episcopal Church, as Dr. Kellerman and his wife are missionaries. However, interested parties should not be discouraged by this - their style of missionary work focuses more on theological research than evangelicalism, and funding is not dependent on membership in the Episcopal Church or any expectation of missionary work on your part.

As mentioned earlier, this opportunity is available to any students who are interested - however, please note that it is preferred that you are able to commit 6 weeks to the project, as there is a significant amount of travel time involved.

If you are interested in more information about this opportunity, please contact Dr. Jim Theis (jtheis@tulane.edu) in the Family and Community Medicine Department or Dr. Kellerman (batwas@yahoo.com). You can also check out some of the work they have done, online at www.pygmies.net