Medical Trainees Benefit from Einterz Fund

I hear these same words so often from “AMPATH alumni” who spent time with us in Eldoret or at another AMPATH partner university: 

“My experience with AMPATH helped remind me of the reasons I went to medical school in the first place. It really changed my worldview.”

Bob and Lea Anne Einterz in Eldoret

Truly, so many Kenyan and American physicians are excelling as stronger, more compassionate and effective care providers with the help of a transformational AMPATH training experience.

But without scholarship support, many trainees simply cannot afford to participate in the medical exchange program.

AMPATH is launching a special global health education fund to permanently endow 15 scholarships each year for medical exchange trainees from Kenya, Indiana and beyond in honor of Bob and Lea Anne Einterz – important mentors to me and so many other trainees.

With your support, this endowed fund will create a cadre of “Einterz Scholars” to serve and learn alongside counterparts at AMPATH partner institutions for multi-week medical exchanges. These life-changing experiences of training with peers, providing care and engaging in research will ignite the potential of more young leaders in global health.

Past trainees remark that the medical exchange experience led to transformational learning and opened them up to a broader worldview.

Olive Akunga, an internal medicine resident from Moi completed pulmonary and critical care rotations in Indiana just before COVID temporarily locked down travel. She described her experience as “phenomenal!” saying that she “came with high expectations that were surpassed. I learned something every day.” She observed highly specialized procedures in the pulmonary unit, plus emergency preparedness in the face of the pandemic.

Lukoye Atwoli, one of Moi University’s early medical graduates trained at IU for two months in 1999. He went on to become a psychiatrist and serve as dean of Moi University School of Medicine. He has mentored scores of Moi medical students who engaged in electives at Indiana, Toronto, Duke, Brown and other schools, describing the experience as life-changing.

I came to Eldoret many years ago as a med student from Brown University. Arriving at the height of the HIV crisis and just before 9/11, the 8-week experience was transformative and altered my career trajectory. I caught the AMPATH bug.      

Your endowed gift will create permanent scholarships and programmatic support for global medical exchanges long into the future.  

And, as you and others give to permanently endow medical exchange scholarships, the flexible operating dollars currently used for exchanges will be freed up to fund other high-need, urgent AMPATH programs.

Trainees in Kenya, the US and throughout the world recognize the AMPATH medical exchange program as a game changer.

You can help change the game for a medical trainee and give the gift of a global health education that will last a lifetime by making a special gift to the Einterz Fund.

Thank you for your support,

Adrian Gardner, MD, MPH

Executive Director, AMPATH Consortium