Center for
Global Health

Scholar

Languages: English (fluent), German (fluent), Amharic (fluent), French (semi-fluent)

Bio statement

I have been involved in global health for over 25 years. I started as a research fellow of the World Health Organization in Germany and West Africa doing work in filarial disease. During this period I was able to earn my Diploma in Tropical Medicine & Parasitology (DTM&P). In addition, I went on to do fellowship in Tropical Pediatrics and participate in global health work around pediatric malnutrition and tuberculosis. When I completed my radiology residency, my focus turned to global outreach education in pediatric radiology and also established a departmental pediatric radiology fellowship in Ethiopia.

Since 1991, I have been involved in various international outreach activities. Initially, my focus was on tropical pediatrics, but later on I switched work to pediatric radiology education. In 2008, I established the collaboration between the Departments of Radiology at CHOP and Addis Ababa University with the objective of supporting the radiology residency program in pediatric imaging education and conducting a pediatric radiology fellowship. In February 2017 the first 2 pediatric radiologists graduated from this 2-year fellowship program – the first ones in a country with a 100 million population with almost 60% in the pediatric age group.

Recent global health projects

1. Establishment of the COVID CENTRAL information repository on the website of the Ethiopian Medical Association

2. Curation of a website on pediatric radiology outreach activities in Ethiopia together with the Pediatric Radiology Division of the Department of Radiology of the Addis Ababa University.

Selected publications

1. .Pediatric Radiology Fellowship Creation as an International Education Outreach Effort in Ethiopia. Zember J, Reid J, Gorfu Y, Solomon DZ, Darge K. J Grad Med Educ. 2020 Feb;12(1):98-103. doi: 10.4300/JGME-D-19-00291.1.
2. Wakjira E, Sisay S, Zember J, Zewdneh D, Gorfu Y, Kebede T, Tadesse A, Darge K. Implementing ultrasound-guided hydrostatic reduction of intussusception in a low-resource country in Sub-Saharan Africa: our initial experience in Ethiopia. Emerg Radiol. 2018 Feb;25(1):1-6. doi: 10.1007/s10140-017-1546-y. Epub 2017 Aug 24. PMID: 28840373.
3. Wakjira E, Sisay S, Zember J, Zewdneh D, Gorfu Y, Kebede T, Tadesse A, Darge K (2017). Implementing ultrasound-guided hydrostatic reduction of intussusception in a low-resource country in Sub-Saharan Africa: our initial experience in Ethiopia.  Emerg Radiol. 2017 Aug 24. doi: 10.1007/s10140-017-1546-y
4. Back SJ, Darge K, Bedoya MA, Delgado J, Gorfu Y, Zewdneh D, Reid JR (2016). Ultrasound Tutorials in Under 10 Minutes: Experience and Results. AJR Am J Roentgenol. 2016 Sep; 207(3):653-60. doi: 10.2214/AJR.16.16402.
5. Dehaye A, Silva CT, Darge K, Prabhu SP, Andronikou S, Laya BF, Coley BD, Boechat MI.Saving the starfish: World Federation of Pediatric Imaging (WFPI) development, work to date, and membership feedback on international outreach. Pediatr Radiol. 2016 Apr;46(4):452-61.

Last Updated: 28 February 2022