UH Roe Green Center for Travel Medicine & Global Health Celebrates Excellence
From a young age, Roe Green has loved international travel and often visited UH for travel medicine services to stay healthy overseas. Today, having visited 165 countries, she considers herself a citizen of the world with a rich appreciation for different cultures and peoples.
This passion inspired Roe to make a significant gift to UH in 2014, supporting and naming the UH Roe Green Center for Travel Medicine. Five years later, she increased the size and scope of her investment to benefit global health via the expanded UH Roe Green Center for Travel Medicine & Global Health — bringing her total giving to nearly $15 million.
Throughout, she worked closely with UH caregivers, particularly the late Robert Salata, MD, the visionary, inaugural director of the UH Roe Green Center
“The synergy and friendship between Roe and Dr. Salata was foundational to the center,” said Keith Armitage, MD, Medical Director, UH Roe Green Center for Travel Medicine & Global Health; Robert A. Salata, MD, Chair in Infectious Diseases. “Her interest in travel and adventure coincided with our existing travel clinic, and her first gift gave us the ability to build on that and offer innovative services like telehealth travel medicine. And her subsequent support allows us to play a role internationally in terms of global health innovation, education and clinical outcomes.”
Advancing Global Health Education
Today, the UH Roe Green Center’s global health efforts focus on the bilateral exchange of information and expertise, supporting UH clinicians as they travel around the globe to gain, share and apply knowledge. It also encourages international leaders and trainees to visit UH for instruction and collaboration.
A defining feature of the UH Roe Green Center is its support of UH clinicians with an interest in global health. Each year, a class of Roe Green Global Health Scholars receives funding for international travel, education and outreach.
“Being a Roe Green Scholar has allowed my overseas work to be an integral part of my career,” said obstetrician/gynecologist, Rachel Pope, MD, MPH, UH Urology Institute. Dr. Pope is one of just a few physicians trained in obstetric fistula repair, a procedure to correct the childbirth injury that occurs when a woman is unable to have a cesarean section. “The skills I have are very specialized, so being able to provide these surgeries to women in sub-Saharan Africa and also teach physicians there how to do it is only possible because of Roe.”
Beyond on-the-ground clinical care and training, Dr. Pope has used her scholarship funds to create an app to assist with obstetric fistula repair surgery education. The new technology will be available later this year.
Leonardo Kayat Bittencourt, MD, PhD, Vice Chair for Innovation at UH, learned about the UH Roe Green Center early in his recruitment. “During the interview process, Dr. Salata explained the center and how my involvement with technology and artificial intelligence could help foster innovation on a global scale. I accepted the offer and immediately became a part of a community that supported and empowered me – it was an incredible confidence boost!”
Dr. Bittencourt has used his Roe Green Scholar grant award to meet with leading, international tech companies and to build UH’s RadiCLE program, which promotes novel use of AI within the health system.
Leading Through a Pandemic
For nearly 40 years, UH has worked alongside Case Western Reserve University in Uganda to help bring down rates of tuberculosis, HIV and a variety of non-communicable diseases. Roe has made several trips to the area with Dr. Salata and other UH physicians over the years, witnessing the work to improve health outcomes firsthand.
Knowledge learned there had a global impact when the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, leaving people around the world with more questions than answers. National, regional and local media turned to Drs. Salata and Armitage at the UH Roe Green Center for Travel Medicine & Global Health for guidance.
“COVID-19 was unique with rapidly evolving and changing information. As leaders in infectious diseases, we were able to serve as trusted resources throughout the pandemic,” said Dr. Armitage.
“It was a rewarding experience to apply our decades of global health learnings and insights and help educate the public as the pandemic unfolded.”
A Lasting Legacy
“The world has gotten smaller and information travels faster,” Roe said. “Diseases travel faster as well. We have a responsibility to be aware of what is happening globally, so when a virus like COVID spreads across the globe, we are better positioned to address it and potentially save lives.”
“Roe’s support allows us to make a difference globally,” said Dr. Armitage. “Her involvement and oversight keep us striving to do our best and to make meaningful contributions.”
In just a decade, the UH Roe Green Center for Travel Medicine & Global Health has had a tremendous impact for patients here and beyond, with ripples that will endure for generations. “Roe’s legacy is two-fold,” said Dr. Armitage. “It’s the knowledge that people can travel safely, relying on the UH Roe Green Center for Travel Medicine & Global Health for the best preventative travel medicine available. And it’s in the careers of all the young doctor’s she has supported and what they’ve gone on to do to improve health around the world.”