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Message from the President
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Sunday, November 12, 2017
Kybele has so much to be thankful for in this Fall newsletter. We have had
FIVE scientific publications since May, highlighting our work in three countries, Armenia, Ghana and Serbia. Most notably, we made the COVER of
Anesthesiology, a high impact journal with a worldwide circulation of over 50,000. Getting a paper published in Anesthesiology is difficult enough, but making the cover...this just blew me away! The publication summarizes our eight year partnership in Armenia which culminated in the development of obstetric anesthesia practice guidelines. The guidelines were a first in Armenia, in any field of medicine, to be fully approved by the Ministry of Health to help guide clinical care and set safety parameters. The document has been officially printed and distributed throughout the country. Furthermore, the efforts of the Kybele training team, led by UK anesthesiologist's
Gordon Yuill and
Simon Miller, has resulted in a pronounced and sustained increase in the use of spinal anesthesia for cesarean section across the country. This means that thousands of women in Armenia each year will have access to safer anesthesia care for cesarean section.
An equally impressive manuscript was published in July, in
PLoS One, another highly regarded global health journal. This is the cost analysis of our novel, hospital-based quality improvement initiative that was created by Kybele and the Ghana Health Service at the Greater Accra Ridge Regional Hospital. Through this unique, five-year program,
we estimated that 236 maternal and 129 stillbirth deaths were prevented at the astounding cost of only $158 per life saved! This is one of the first studies of this type in the medical literature. As global health dollars shrink, it is important to know which strategies work to save lives and at what cost. I'm pleased to say that Kybele is on the cutting edge. Our collaborations are culturally appropriate, cost effective and the improvements in care have been sustained. We owe this all to our tremendous team and our country partners who, together, go above and beyond to help the women and babies we serve.
With gratitude,
Medge D. Owen, M.D.
President, Kybele, Inc.
Professor Obstetric Anesthesia
Wake Forest School of Medicine
Medical Director of Global Health
Novant Health Maya Angelou Women's Health and Wellness Center
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Kybele Thanks Outgoing Board Member, Dr. Adeyemi Olufolabi
Kybele would like to thank outgoing board member, Dr. Adeyemi (Yemi) Olufolabi for his years of dedicated service to Kybele. Yemi is an Associate Professor of Obstetric Anesthesiology at Duke University School of Medicine. Under his guidance, Kybele's work in Ghana has flourished. He has been instrumental in the establishment and ongoing teaching at the Anesthesia School at the Greater Accra Ridge Regional Hospital, now on its ninth class of students. He has developed a massive electronic database, capturing a wealth of outcome data and saving Ridge staff literally hundreds of hours on manual data extraction. His enthusiasm for "all things Africa" and the vast medical training needs there has propelled him into his next major career trajectory. He has won a prestigious Fulbright scholarship and will be working in Rwanda from December through May 2018. We congratulate Yemi and thank him for his passion for global health and his loyal dedication to Kybele.
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Kybele representation at International Meetings
Drs. Adeyemi Olufolabi and Medge Owen spoke at the First World Congress on Anesthesia for Obstetrics February 22-25, 2017 in Bali, Indonesia. Dr. Evans Atito-Narh, long-time friend of Kybele and Head of the School of Anesthesia at Ridge Hospital, was also an invited speaker.
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Student leaders of "The Bridge Project" spoke at the 3rd Maya Angelou International Women's Health Summit held March 2-4 at Novant Health, Forsyth Medical Center in Winston-Salem, NC. Five high school students from Winston-Salem captivated the audience with the results of their service work in Ghana. The Bridge Project is a community outreach limb of Kybele to serve children, especially at-risk girls in Ghana, through better education.
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Kybele members from the United States, Canada, and abroad attended the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP) annual conference in
Seattle, Washington on May 10-14, 2017. During the conference, Kybele hosted a wine and cheese event specifically for international guests attending the conference. Kybele team participants also presented multiple abstracts on Kybele's work in Serbia and Ghana.
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Dr. Medge Owen, was one of eight invited international speakers to the 64th Annual Japanese Society of Anesthesiology meeting held in Kobe, Japan on June 8-10, 2017. The meeting was attended by over 10,000 Japanese anesthesiologists, making it the largest conference in their history. In addition, Dr. Owen lectured at Kitasato and Osaka Universities during her eight day stay in Japan.
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Dr. Medge Owen was invited to speak about Kybele at the 10th Annual Conference of Association of Obstetric Anaesthesiologists in
Bengaluru, India on October 1-2, 2017.
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Board of Directors and Staff
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Medge Owen, MD - President
Holly Muir, MD - Vice-President
Curtis Baysinger, MD
Lisa Councilman Corbett, MD
Lawrence Fordjour, MD
Ronald George, MD
Matt Hatch, MD
Rohit Ramaswamy, PhD
Melvin Seid, MD
Leigh Stanfield
Staff:
Sebnem Ucer, Accounts Manager
Erin Pfeiffer, Grants Manager/Program Coordinator
Kimber Whanger, Marketing & Admin
Dayne Logan, Editor
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If you would like to nominate a person for the Board of Directors or would like to more information about Board Committee membership, please contact a Kybele staff person.
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