Bett Zablon and David Andambi are the first students to visit WSU in an exchange program with Kenya’s Moi University Faculty of Health Sciences.

Bett Zablon and David Andambi, the first pair of exchange students in a recently established relationship between the Wayne State University School of Medicine and Kenya’s Moi University Faculty of Health Sciences, finished a six-week exchange program in October.

Both said they were impressed by technologies they learned to use in Detroit Receiving and Harper Hospitals.

"Here, there are so many [clinical] tests that can be done," Andambi said. "It’s incredible."

The WSU School of Medicine last year joined a coalition of institutions (led by the Indiana University School of Medicine) that provides funding for about a dozen Kenyan students to study in the United States each year, said Ernie Yoder, MD, associate chair of internal medicine and a coordinator of the program. Teams of American physicians from participating institutions spend month-long stints in Kenya helping to train students there.

"Talking to these young men, they want to go home and improve health care there," Dr. Yoder said. "We help them develop their own faculty and teaching resources."

Wayne State students and faculty members have been going to Kenya through the exchange program for the past couple of years. The program is ongoing and volunteers are already signed up for the 2000 trip.