A Summer at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre in Tanzania: lessons from a Global Health Rotation from a 2nd year Medical Student

This past summer Harrison Chen, a 2nd year medical student at Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM), traded familiar hospital hallways in New York for the wards of Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre (KCMC) in Tanzania. This experience reshaped how he thinks about medicine, patient care, and what it means to practice with resilience. 

"My time at KCMC was incredibly enriching and helped me mature both personally and professionally," he reflects. Working alongside physicians and patients day after day, he absorbed not just clinical knowledge but a broader cultural fluency. Harrison learned from his Tanzanian colleagues about "the unique complexities of health care delivery and access to care" in the region. 

If there's one lesson that followed him from the wards to the mountainside, it's resilience. He watched the KCMC staff repeatedly "adapt to difficult situations, maintain a level head and positive attitude, and persevere through tough challenges as a team." That mindset came in handy sooner than he expected. After his rotation wrapped up, he and classmate Julia Brittain set out to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. He describes the climb as "an exhausting yet immensely rewarding endeavor that, upon reflection, felt very much like medical school." 

Harrison’s rotation spanned general surgery, orthopedic surgery, the surgical ICU (SICU), and the emergency department. A typical day began with a morning report followed by ward rounds and observation in the operating room. 

Beyond patient care, Harrison helped with a quality improvement project in the SICU. Harrison’s work was inspired and guided by his KCMC mentor who wanted to build a digital database from the unit's paper logbook — one that could automatically surface key metrics like SICU mortality, top diagnoses, admission sources, and post-SICU outcomes. He was also asked to digitize the hospital's hospital-acquired infection tracking forms, making it far easier for staff to calculate infection statistics across their patient population. KCMC staff are now using the hospital-acquired infection tracking forms and the SICU digital registry database that Harrison created to improve patient care in the SICU.

 A Culture of Teaching 

Harrison was happily surprised by how eager all of the KCMC faculty and trainees were to teach, as he observed and asked questions. KCMC faculty organized lectures for staff and medical students alike, and he found himself filling "pages of notes on clinical cases."

Some cases felt familiar, similar to what he'd see back at WCM. Others were strikingly different: severe tetanus, late-presenting diabetic foot ulcers, and a steady stream of trauma, acute surgical, and burn cases. 

The rotation also gave Harrison a firsthand education in health systems. Most patients at KCMC lacked health insurance. Harrison came to understand how Tanzania's fee-for-service model shapes what treatment is accessible and how that intersects with broader social determinants of health. 

Following a Patient's Journey 

Near the end of his time at KCMC, Harrison met a patient in the emergency department who had been in a motor vehicle accident. Under a specialist's supervision, Harrison used the point of care ultrasound skills learned from WCM faculty in New York to perform an ultrasound exam and help the KCMC team to treat the patient’s neurogenic shock. He later observed this patient’s surgery and helped to enter this patient into the newly implemented SICU registry database.

"Being present for… this patient's clinical progression," he says, "was incredibly meaningful." He was grateful "to have played a small part in the patient's care." 

Advice for Future Trainees

Reflecting on the summer, he remains deeply grateful to KCMC and the Center for Global Health at WCM for the opportunity. None of it would have been possible without support from his mentors: Dr. Chrystal Munyanyi at KCMC, and Drs. Deborah Haisch, Rob Peck, and Estomih Mtui from WCM.  

Beyond the clinical skills and the quality improvement project, he came home with friendships and lessons he expects to carry "for the rest of my career and life." 

Harrison is now encouraging all of his fellow WCM medical students to take full advantage of the partnerships that WCM has built around the world to learn about global health. "These experiences helped shape my potential career interests."