{"id":3457,"date":"2016-08-04T12:08:35","date_gmt":"2016-08-04T16:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/surgery\/training-a-nation-with-anthony-charles-md\/"},"modified":"2018-10-11T10:46:56","modified_gmt":"2018-10-11T14:46:56","slug":"training-a-nation-with-anthony-charles-md","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/surgery\/training-a-nation-with-anthony-charles-md\/","title":{"rendered":"Training a Nation with Anthony Charles, MD"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By formal training, Anthony Charles, MD, MPH, is a trauma surgeon. By experience, he\u2019s a diplomat.<\/p>\n

Charles leads the Malawian Surgical Initiative, a partnership between the UNC Department of Surgery, Kamuzu Central Hospital in Lilongwe, Malawi, and the Malawi College of Medicine in Blantyre, Malawi.<\/p>\n

On December 5, 2015, the first class of surgeons graduated from the five-year training program. And on that day, the number of trained surgeons in a country of 15 million people grew by six \u2013 to a total of 20. The goal is that they stay in their home country to serve their fellow citizens.<\/p>\n

The graduation marked the beginning of a period of great expansion for the program, which has newly established partnerships with UNC\u2019s departments of urology, neurosurgery, and anesthesiology.<\/p>\n

Leading the initiative requires Charles \u2013 also an active trauma surgeon, and director of the adult ECMO program at UNC Hospitals \u2013 to navigate the challenges that come from coordinating a program from another continent and closely collaborating with a foreign government.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis program is entirely built on trust, which has contributed to its success, but also makes it fragile,\u201d Charles said. \u201cWe\u2019ve done a lot of good, which I think has bought us some grace and good will, but all it takes is one person going down there and saying the wrong thing, and it can just come crashing down.\u201d<\/p>\n

For eight years now, Charles has kept that from happening.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is the glue,\u201d said Bruce Cairns, MD, the John Stackhouse Distinguished Professor of Surgery at the UNC School of Medicine and director of North Carolina Jaycee Burn Center. \u201cThe reason the program is successful is because of his efforts. In Malawi, our involvement is a socio-political issue as much as a health care issue. Each linkage we make there has to be through an individual; a committee won\u2019t work. And what we have with Anthony is someone who has the unique capacity to connect all of the dots.\u201d<\/p>\n

An International Perspective<\/b><\/p>\n

Charles was born in Germany to Nigerian parents, who met while his father was studying medicine in Heidelberg and his mother working as a nurse at a military base. When Charles was 3, the family moved back to Nigeria, where his father began a successful career as a pediatrician, educator, and administrator.<\/p>\n

His father became medical director of Guinness\u2019 philanthropic health outreach efforts in Nigeria. Guinness Beer is a national favorite in Nigeria. In fact, the first Guinness brewery outside of the UK was actually built in Nigeria\u2019s largest city: Lagos. One of the perks of working with the beer giant was the opportunity for Charles\u2019 father to send his children to boarding school in Ireland.<\/p>\n

So, from the ages of 9 through 18, Charles lived and studied in Ireland, before returning to Nigeria to attend medical school at the University of Lagos. Residency training took him to London where he met his wife, a native of Los Angeles. When her time was up in London, Charles came with her to LA, completing his general surgery residency at Martin Luther King Medical Center, an inner-city hospital with an abundance of trauma cases.<\/p>\n

After a trauma and critical care fellowship at the University of Michigan, Charles arrived at UNC in 2006. Central to his progress in academic medicine, he said, was the decision to pursue his master\u2019s degree at UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health.<\/p>\n

Through his public health studies, Charles became aware of the infectious disease work UNC was leading in Malawi. He traveled to Africa to see it for himself and learn how he might become involved.<\/p>\n

Read More Here<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By formal training, Anthony Charles, MD, MPH, is a trauma surgeon. By experience, he\u2019s a diplomat. Charles leads the Malawian Surgical Initiative, a partnership between the UNC Department of Surgery, Kamuzu Central Hospital in Lilongwe, Malawi, and the Malawi College \u2026 Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17295,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"layout":"","cellInformation":"","apiCallInformation":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24],"featured-item":[],"class_list":["post-3457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-24","odd"],"pp_force_visibility":null,"pp_subpost_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_force_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_subpost_visibility":null,"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTraining a Nation with Anthony Charles, MD | Department of Surgery<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/surgery\/training-a-nation-with-anthony-charles-md\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Training a Nation with Anthony Charles, MD | Department of Surgery\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By formal training, Anthony Charles, MD, MPH, is a trauma surgeon. 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