On Sunday morning, we flew from Nairobi to Eldoret, Kenya. That's where we are now. We're here as part of a program called AMPATH.
AMPATH (Academic Model Providing Access to Health Care) treats over 120,000 HIV positive patients at 25 main clinical sites and over 30 satellite sites in both rural and urban Kenya. Indiana University is the heart of the AMPATH consortium which includes a number of other US and Canadian universities. Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital is the regional medical center in Eldoret in western Kenya.
The compound that houses the folks that come here to work is called IU House. We are particularly honored to be staying in the home of the head of AMPATH, Dr. Joe Mamlin and his wife Sarah Ellen.
Joe Mamlin is the heart and soul of AMPATH. In fact both AMPATH and Joe have been nominated numerous times for the Nobel Peace Prize. Alan is here working on the AMPATH oncology program. While he is doing that, Maya and I are working with Sarah Ellen in the pediatric ward at the hospital. More on that later.
On our first day here, Alan, Maya and I walked over to the hospital together. We saw a sign for the Hemato-Oncology Clinic in the brand new AMPATH building. There was no such thing as an oncology clinic here when we were here seven years ago. Alan was the first oncologist to come here. As we walked in to look around, we met a doctor from the clinic. Alan introduced himself and the man grabbed his arm and said "you're Dr. Rosmarin?! You're the man that started this!" At that point I burst into tears. I was so proud.
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