GALVESTON, Texas - Five faculty members from the Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston will travel to Africa in March as part of an ongoing project to improve medical technology curricula in Rwanda, Ethiopia and Tanzania.

Through a contract with the American Society for Clinical Pathology, Hank Thierry and Janet Vincent will visit Kigali, Rwanda, March 14-23, Vicki Freeman will visit Arusha, Tanzania, March 21-30, and Jean Brickell and Camellia St. John will visit Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, March 28-April 7.

The UTMB group, all from the School of Allied Health Sciences, will serve as consultants for ASCP's President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. They will work with university faculty in the three countries to assess needs and develop educational materials for medical laboratory technologists.

"The purpose of these pre-service meetings is to collaborate with faculty in each country to develop psychomotor, cognitive and affective objectives, expanded lecture notes, specific hands-on laboratory exercises, clinical rotation checklists, and exams and assessment tools," Freeman said.

In 2007, as a pilot to this program, Freeman, chairwoman of the Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences, worked with faculty from other U.S. universities to determine what elements were missing from the curriculum at educational institutions in Tanzania. A team of five faculty from UTMB, the University of Nebraska Medical Center, the University of Utah Division of Medical Laboratory Sciences and Stony Brook University later met with faculty from four Tanzanian programs to discuss the findings and to help adjust the curriculum. Now she and her colleagues are developing lessons to help fill the gaps.

Freeman is also working with the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre Biotechnology Research lab to establish a program that brings technologists from Africa to UTMB for additional training at UTMB clinical laboratories.

"Ultimately this program will serve to enhance laboratory testing practices and enhance the quality of laboratory testing services in order to improve the effectiveness of HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment services and interventions," Freeman said.

For more information, visit

http://www.ascp.org/AboutUs/newsroom/articles/memberUpdateArticle_outreach.aspx.