From "country" to Country

By Melanie Nicol
 
Tomorrow I will be departing for my sixth trip to Uganda. Traveling with me are three students from the UMN College of Pharmacy. Over the next few days I will have them introduce themselves and over the next few weeks we will be taking turns sharing more details about our experiences in Kampala.


But first a little bit more about myself. I am an Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota in the College of Pharmacy. To start, international travel was not something I ever imagined would be a major component of my work..it certainly wasn't something I was looking for in a job or career. In fact, I've always considered myself a bit of a homebody. I grew up in the "country"on a family dairy farm in Central Ohio. By the time I finished pharmacy school at Ohio Northern University, I could count on one hand the number of times I'd been outside of Ohio. I was a second year graduate student at University of North Carolina when I left U.S. borders for the first time on a trip to Niagara Falls. So if you'd told that graduate student that in her next job she'd be taking 2-3 trips a year to Africa, she would have likely responded with a combination of disbelief and panic.

My brother and I on our family farm in Chuckery, OH; circa 1989 

My first trip to Uganda was in November 2015. I was just beginning my second year of faculty at Minnesota. The University of Minnesota was celebrating 10 years of collaboration with the Infectious Disease Institute in Kampala, Uganda with a 3-Day symposium. It was also the launch of UMN-Uganda Hub , established by the UMN Academic Health Center to serve as a resource to foster collaborations between Makerere University and University of Minnesota. At the time, the College of Pharmacy did not have a significant presence in Uganda. In an attempt to enhance interdisciplinary opportunities, the College leadership approached me and asked if I would be interested in attending the symposium and using the new Hub to explore collaborations. They believed my work in HIV/AIDS research would align with those of researchers at Makerere and the Infectious Disease Institute. " Just go and meet people," I was told. "Explore opportunities. No pressure."


So I went. I met people. I met Dr. Flavia Matovu at MUJHU research (an NGO research organization in Kampala). Flavia and I quickly recognized a shared research interest in HIV prevention for women. Further conversation led to some ideas for research projects and we launched our first study together in November 2017 which completed enrollment in April 2018 (more on this later). I'm excited to talk with Flavia during this upcoming trip about next directions and future projects. At the symposium, I also got connected with a team of researchers studying cryptococcal meningitis (CM), a fungal infection that is devastating to individuals living with HIV, killing over 200,000 people a year. This team is a blended group of individuals from Minnesota and Uganda performing high-impact clinical research. You'll hear more about my involvement with the CM team in upcoming posts as well.


In addition to research collaborations, I've also spent the past few years looking for opportunities for students to get involved in international research. Last year, I piloted an elective APPE (Advanced Practice Pharmacy Experience- clinical experiences for 4th year pharmacy students). Amy Tran, PD4 (now PharmD) was brave enough to be the first person to sign up; she presented a poster on her experiences at the American College of Clinical Pharmacy Annual Meeting last October (Abstract #323). Collaborations with KarenBeth Bohan (read her blog here!) from Binghamton University, and Winnie Nambatya from Makerere University,have led to a variety of experiences  developed for pharmacy students to experience pharmacy practice (and research) in Uganda. Tomorrow two more 4th year students will begin my second offering of this APPE. You'll hear much more from us in the coming weeks about these experiences.

Me, Winnie Nambatya, and Amy Tran reviewing charts in the Neurosurgery Ward at Mulago Hospital; April 2017

Amy Tran and I with her poster at ACCP in Phoenix, AZ; Oct 2017