WORLD HEART FEDERATION NAMES TWIN CENTRES 2008 FELLOWS
The World Heart Federation has awarded Twin Centres’ fellowships to young cardiologists from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, Nigeria and Tanzania.
Each of the recipients will use their Twin Centres’ fellowship to train at a renowned foreign cardiology centre. The programme is designed to increase the quality and capacity of cardiology centres in less-advantaged countries or regions by pairing them with centres that are already top in the field.
Each fellow will receive a grant of 25,000 Swiss francs to help cover 12 months of living expenses. During that time, they will work at cardiology centres specialising in outstanding preventive care, clinical cardiology, research and training.
Increasing knowledge
The four fellowship recipients are:
- Maria E. Marketou. A cardiologist at Heraklion University Hospital in Crete, she will use her fellowship to complete her research under Harambos Gavras, chief of the hypertension and atherosclerosis section at Boston University School of Medicine in Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America. The knowledge gained will help her to improve the treatment of hypertension and atherosclerosis in Crete.
- Barbara Edewele Otaigbe. A paediatrician at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital in Nigeria, she will use her fellowship to complete her training in paediatric cardiology at the Institute of Cardio Vascular Diseases of the Madras Medical Mission in Chennai, India. She will work under the paediatric cardiology department’s dean, Pilomena Mariados. One of Dr Otaigbe’s specific goals is to be able to make competent diagnoses with echocardiograms in Port Harcourt, where there are no paediatric cardiologists.
- Kemi Tibazarwa. A cardiologist and public health expert from Tanzania, she will use her fellowship to complete her work as a supernumerary medical registrar under Bongani Mayosi, head of the Department of Medicine of the University of Cape Town in South Africa. She will use her training to improve her clinical practice of cardiology in Tanzania.
- Dusko Vulvic. Founder of the Foundation of Health and Heart in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, his fellowship will enable him to work as a visiting scholar in the Heart Disease Prevention Programme at the University of California at Irvine, United States of America. He will work with Nathan Wong, director of the programme, with the goal of establishing lasting cooperation between the two centres.
Obligation to return
A condition of the fellowship is that each recipient must return to their country of origin to assist in the development of cardiology at the local level.
There were 18 fellowship applications in total.
Learn more about the Twin Centres fellowships in the World Heart Federation web site.
