American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine (AUC) and Harvard Medical Faculty Physicians at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (HMFP) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), with the aim to establish a center of excellence for disaster medicine in the Caribbean.
“As a medical school with its main campus in the Caribbean, AUC is ideally positioned to develop medical education and training opportunities in the areas of hurricane preparedness and emergency response to benefit the region and beyond,” said Heidi Chumley, MD, MBA, Executive Dean at AUC. “We’re excited to work with HMFP to explore a wide range of collaborative efforts, and apply our combined expertise to the challenges facing the country of St. Maarten and the region.”
HMFP is the academic physician group exclusively affiliated with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), a major Harvard Medical School teaching affiliate in Boston. HMFP deploys members of its emergency medicine department to collaborations across the globe to build capacity in disaster preparedness and response systems, and provides continuing education and training to healthcare professionals and first responders.
“This collaboration with AUC offers a uniquely positioned platform to develop academic, research, and operational capacity in a region where hurricanes and tropical storms pose a threat,” said Gregory R. Ciottone, MD, FACEP, FFSEM, Director of the Division of Disaster Medicine at BIDMC and Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School. “We’re looking forward to engaging with experts in the Caribbean through this center of excellence in disaster medicine, and exposing more medical students to this challenging and immensely rewarding field.”
Currently in the planning stage, the center could potentially include academic exchanges involving faculty and medical students, continuing education and training programs, conferences and symposia, and on-site teaching on AUC’s St. Maarten medical sciences campus by Harvard Medical School faculty, and leverage the wide range of medical and healthcare resources and programs within Adtalem.
About Harvard Medical Faculty Physicians
Harvard Medical Faculty Physicians at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Inc. (HMFP) was formed in May of 1998 in support of the merger of Beth Israel Hospital and New England Deaconess Hospital (now BIDMC). HMFP is the employed physician group at BIDMC. We employ approximately 1152 providers and have an exclusive affiliation agreement with BIDMC for patient care, research, and teaching services. Each of our 13 departments is led by a Chief of Service who collaborates with a Chief Administrative Officer. Our HMFP corporate offices provide comprehensive management services, such as compliance, legal, finance, and human resources, to our faculty members. For more information, please visit hmfphysicians.org.