Throughout the world, there are children becoming sick and dying of preventable diseases. These children have the same hopes and dreams as children in our communities and in our state. But because of where they were born they do not have access to the same quality of care that is provided at Connecticut Children’s.

Many lives can be saved by addressing limitations in perinatal care, endemic malnutrition, limited or no access to clean drinking water, lack of immunizations, and limited availability of medicines and medical equipment. Childhood mortality rates can be lowered by working with local healthcare providers to augment the available medical training and institute sustainable “train-the-trainer models” in order to improve the care provided.

Frequently Asked Questions

Connecticut Children’s Center for Global Health team is dedicated to improving the physical and emotional health of children around the world by supporting our staff and faculty in their activities to build the capacity of nurses, physicians and other healthcare providers in developing countries.

Connecticut Children’s providers have traveled to such countries as:

  • Haiti
  • Columbia
  • Peru
  • Jamaica
  • Rwanda
  • Uganda
  • Nigeria
  • Ghana
  • Guatamala
  • India
  • Ethiopia
  • Helping to develop long-term strategies to increase the capacity of local healthcare providers
  • Serving as consultants for children with advanced and complex diseases
  • Securing and providing education regarding the necessity for clean drinking water
  • Educating medical personnel to improve newborn mortality rates
  • Providing medical and surgical care
  • Performing cardiac surgery
  • Treating HIV
  • Researching
  • Establishing programs for children with insulin-dependent diabetes
  • Repairing cleft lips

Improving Global Health Outcomes

Connecticut Children’s is committed to caring for patients and educating providers around the world through Connecticut Children’s Center for Global Health.

Center for Global Health Supports Children in Africa

Children living in resource-limited countries have the same hopes and dreams as children in Connecticut, but they often lack the same opportunities due to where they were born. 

Center for Global Health Team

Adam Silverman, MD
Director, Connecticut Children’s Center for Global Health
Emergency Medicine and Critical Care Physician, Connecticut Children’s

Brendan Campbell, MD, MPH, FACS
Director of Trauma, Pediatric Surgical Quality and Safety Officer, Connecticut Children’s

Nancy Dunbar, MD, MPH, FAAP
Endocrinologist, Connecticut Children’s

Melissa Held, MD
Infectious Diseases & Immunology Physician, Connecticut Children’s

Christopher D. Hughes MD, MPH
Plastic Surgeon, Connecticut Children’s

Naveed Hussain, MD
Neonatologist, Connecticut Children’s

Andrea Orsey, MD
Director, Cancer Supportive Care Program, Connecticut Children’s

Cliff O’Callahan, MD, PhD, FAAP
Pediatric Faculty and Director of Nurseries, Middlesex Hospital

Juan C. Salazar, MD, MPH, FAAP
Physician-in-Chief, Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs, Connecticut Children’s

Kristin Welch, MD
Emergency Medicine Physician, Connecticut Children’s

Lisa LeBon, RT
Respiratory, Connecticut Children’s

Stephen Mahier, BSN, RN
Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) Nurse, Connecticut Children’s

2023:

  • Global Health Symposium: “The Price of Life: Economic Ethics in Global Health”

2022:

  • 2022 Global Health Symposium: “Partnerships: Connecting Person, Place and Health”

2021:

2019:

  • “Sustainable Healthcare for Haiti”
  • “Factors influencing the delay in presentation of children with cancer in Port-au-Prince, Haiti”
  • “Current use of bedside ultrasound in refugee clinics, Tel Aviv Israel”
  • “Improving health literacy among Eritrean refugees in Tel Aviv, Israel”
  • “A unique refugee health residency elective in Tel Aviv, Israel”
  • “Developing a Syphilis Prevention, Treatment and Translational Science Center in Cali, Colombia”
  • “Measuring change in knowledge acquisition of Rwandan residents to monitor individual and departmental Improvements during the Human Resources for Health program.”
  • “Various Gaps and Challenges to Neonatal Healthcare in India”
  • “Pacemaker Implantation Teaching”
  • “Global Health Trip took Place in Rwanda”
  • “UConn Immigration Rights Initiative (UIRI)”
  • “Ability to Further Nursing Practice & Professional Growth at Connecticut Children’s”
  • “Uganda Project”

2018:

  • “Running from Home: Caring for Displaced Residents of Mosul and Northern in Iraq.”
    Kristin Welch, MD, Pediatric Emergency Medicine, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center
  • “Intensive Care Interventions in Resource Limited Settings.”
    Michael Canarie, MD, Pediatric Critical Care, Yale-New Haven Hospital
  • “Pediatric Surgical Care In Haiti.”
    Brendan Campbell, MD, MPH, FACS, Department of General Surgery, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center
  • “Integrating HIV Programs into the Namibian Primary Care System: My Time in The Peace Corps.”
    Christine Johanna Callahan, MPH, Senior Research Assistant, The Undiagnosed Diseases Network, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Department of Medicine
  • “Puerto Rico: Seven Months after the Hurricane.
    Marietta Vazquez, MD, Yale Pediatric Children’s Hospital, Pediatric Global Health Track Director
  • “Building Capacity Within a Pediatric Residency Program in Kigali, Rwanda.”
    Cliff O’Callahan, MD, PhD, FAAP, Pediatric Faculty and Director of Nurseries, Middlesex Hospital
  • “The Evolution of a Type I Pediatric Diabetes Program in Haiti.”
    Nancy Street Dunbar, MD, MPH, FAAP, Director, Bone and Mineral Disorders Program
  • “The Evolution of a Refugee Clinic in Connecticut.”
    Melissa Held, MD, Department of Infectious Disease, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center
  • “A Medical Residency Curriculum in Refugee Health.”
    Susan Levine, MD, MPH, Ambulatory Site Director, Internal Medicine Residency, Medical Director of General Medicine Faculty Practice, Medical Director of UConn Immigrant Health
  • “Advanced Ear Surgery in Nicaragua.”
    Scott Schoem, MD, MBA, FAAP, Division Chief Department of Otolaryngology, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center
  • “State of the Union, the Center for Global Health, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center.”
    Adam M. Silverman, MD, FAAP, Pediatric Critical Care and Pediatric Emergency Medicine; Director, Center for Global Health, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center

2017:

  • “Rural Oral Health Care, A Community Based Approach”
    Keri Discepolo, DDS, MPH, Director of Dental Services
  • “Continuing Implementation of an Infant Cooling Program to Treat Infants with Moderate Hypoxic Brain Injury in Hyderabad, India”
    Naveed Hussain, MBBS, MD, DCH, Director, Neonatal Research
  • “From Local to Global: Expanding Craniofacial Care Through International Volunteer Services”
    Kelly Mabry, Ph.D., CCC/SLP, Charles Castiglione, MD, FAACS, Richard Bevilacqua, MD, Craniofacial Services
  • “Complex Spine Surgery in Developing Countries: Challenges and Rewards”
    Mark Lee, MD, Department of Orthopaedics
  • “Emergency Medical Relief to Haiti: Perspectives on a Unique Resident Rotation”
    Susan Levine, MD, MPH, University of Connecticut Health Center, Jessica Lozier, MD, PGY1, University of Connecticut Residency Program
  • “Blown Away: Haiti in the Aftermath of Hurricane Matthew”
    Kristin Welch, MD, Attending Physician, Pediatric Emergency Medicine
  • “Developing Pediatric Critical Care Capacity in Haiti”
    Adam M. Silverman, MD, FAAP, Attending, Pediatric Critical Care and Pediatric Emergency Medicine, Director, Center for Global Health
  • “The Future Generation in Global Health and Innovation: A Family Portrait”
    Karen Damon Callahan, BSA, BSN, MHS, RN, CPN, Nurse Manager, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Associate Director, Center for Global Health
  • “Pediatrics in India From 3 Perspectives”
    Lisa Grady, DO, PGY-2, Mansi James, DO, PGY-2, Martha Salek, MD, PGY-2, Baystate Children’s Hospital
  • “C-PAP Education for Neonatal Respiratory Distress in Haiti”
    Lisa LeBon, MAE, RRT, Assistant Manager Respiratory Care, Tracey Proulx, RN, IBCLC, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
  • “Helping Babies Breath and Helping Babies Survive in the Villages of Hyderabad India”
    Kathryn Miller, RNC, Patricia Thurston, RN, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit – West
  • “The Challenges and Successes of a Hospital-based Inpatient and Outpatient Feeding Program in Accra, Ghana”
    Fiona Pirrocco, DO, PGY-2, Baystate Children’s Hospital

2016:

  • “Pediatric Anesthesia in Resource-Limited Settings”
    Richard Kuntz, MD
  • “Clinical, Cultural, and Logistical Barriers to Providing Cardiac Care to Patients in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Africa”
    Mollie Mullaney, BSN, RN, CCRN-K, Department of Cardiology
  • “Implementing an Infant Cooling Program to Treat Infants With Moderate Hypoxic Brain Injury in Hyderabad, India”
    Naveed Hussain, MD, Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine
  • “Medicine in Panama, One Village at a Time”
    Anna Weingarten, DO, Pediatric Residency Program, PGY-3
  • “State of the Union of Global Health at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center”
    Adam Silverman, MD, Director, Center for Global Health, Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and Department of Emergency Medicine
  • “Screening for Behavioral Health Conditions in an International Clinical Placement”
    Rosalyn Bravo-Cavoli, APRN, Clinical Instructor for Yale School of Nursing, Adjust Faculty, Capital Community College Division of Nursing
  • “Discussion of a case: 14-year-old male with acute onset respiratory distress in setting of chronic chest mass, encountered while abroad at Hospital Bernard Mevs, Haiti”
    Katie Clouthier, DO, Pediatric Residency Program, PL-2
  • “Building Neonatal Resuscitation Capacity in Haiti: Training the Trainers”
    Sandra Motta, MD, FAAP, Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine
  • “Growth and Nutritional Assessment of Preschool Children in Tsachila Communities in Ecuador”
    Agnes Reschke, MD, Pediatric Residency Program
  • “Enhancement of Pediatrics in Peru”
    Rose Flammang, PT, DPT; Kim Hammersmith, PT

2015:

  • “Common Sense and Sensibility: Pediatric Surgical Care in Haiti”
    Brendan Campbell, MD, MPH, Department of Pediatric Surgery
  • “From the Tundra to the Tropics – An Otolaryngologist’s Experience in Global Healthcare” Valerie Coté, MD, CM, FAAP, FRCS(C), Department of Otolaryngology
  • “Syria’s Children: Refugee work in Jordan”
    Jennifer Martin, BSN, MPH, RN, Nurse Manager MS7
  • “Reducing Neonatal Mortality in a Haitian Urban Hospital: Beginning the Journey”
    Victor C. Herson, MD, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
  • “Fostering Collaboration: An Experience in Inter-professional Student Service Learning in Nicaragua”
    Rose Flammang, PT, DPT, Physical Therapy Department
  • “Mending Hearts in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia”
    Mollie Mullaney, BSN, RN, Department of Cardiology
  • “Maternal and Child Health in Pune, India”
    Christine Pulice, DO and Christen Vogel, MD, Pediatric Residency Program
  • “Providing Healthcare in Rural Alaska”
    Margrit Saghafi, BSN, RN, Department of Orthopaedics

2014:

  • “A Qualitative Study about the Pediatric Type 1 Diabetes Program at Hôpital de Sacré Coeur (HSC) in Haiti”
    Nancy Dunbar, MD, MPH, Department of Pediatric Endocrinology
  • “The Bawa Health Initiative; Healthcare in a Rural Village in the West Province of Cameroon, Africa”
    Karen Damon Callahan, MHS, RN, CPN
  • “A Collaborative Project to Reduce Newborn and Neonatal Mortality at Justinien University Hospital in Cap-Haitian, Haiti”
    Adam Silverman, MD, Pediatric Intensive Care Unit
  • “Healthcare in Afghanistan”
    Jennifer Martin, BSN, MPH, RN, MS7
  • “Working Abroad Providing Surgeries for Congenital Cardiac Diseases”
    Whitney Elton, MSN/ED, RN, CCRN, Pediatric Intensive Care Unit
  • “Traveling with the Glens Falls Medical Mission Foundation to the Remote Area of Nueva Santa Rosa, Guatemala”
    Christine Liebler, BSN, RN, PACU
  • “X-Ray in Haiti”
    Jenna Downes, RT/(R), Department of Radiology
  • “Children’s Heart Fund of Ethiopia and The Chain of Hope –UK. The Cardiac Center of Ethiopia, in Addis Ababa”
    Mollie Mullaney, BSN, RN, CCRN, Department of Cardiology