The International Fellowship Exchange Program, sponsored by Pfizer Medical Humanities Initiative, provides funding to help international physicians and academics to come to the United States or Canada for a limited period of study. Seven scholarships will be awarded annually, each with a stipend to cover travel, living and other expenses. The sponsored fellowships are observational in nature and are expected to last for two to three months.
Participating internists will also receive additional funding to attend ACP's Annual Session, internal medicine's premier scientific educational event. Interested international physicians must be internists or subspecialists of internal medicine and must be a member of ACP (or willing to become one).
The first participant in the fellowship program is Norah Olubunmi Akinola, MBchB, PhD, an internist and hematologist who serves as a senior lecturer and consultant at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Nigeria. Starting May 1, 2004, she will be in residence at Cornell Medical Center, where she will study techniques on the diagnosis and management of patients with HIV/AIDS.
"Through this program the American College of Physicians and the Pfizer Medical Humanities Initiative hope to make a positive impact on the practice of medicine throughout the world," said ACP Executive Vice President and CEO John Tooker, MD, MBA, FACP. "The College is looking forward to offering many more internists the opportunity to bring new medical skills and techniques to patients in their home countries."
The American College of Physicians is the largest medical specialty organization in the world and the second-largest physician group in the United States, with a membership of more than 115,000 internal medicine physicians (internists), related subspecialists, and medical students. Internists specialize in the prevention, detection and treatment of illnesses in adults. For more information about ACP see http://www.acponline.org/college/pressroom.
The Pfizer Medical Humanities Initiative is a research and educational program committed to understanding and enhancing the patient-physician relationship. More information is available at http://www.positiveprofiles.com.