The Chapel Hill-based nonprofit Vaccine Ambassadors has recognized the inspiring work of Duke Medicine pediatric surgeon Henry Rice and DGHI Visiting Scholar Lavanya Vasudevan for their contributions to make the world a better place. It’s part of a month-long series by the nonprofit to honor the work of 31 individuals for their work and inspiration. Vaccine Ambassadors is a partnership between health care providers, parents and community members to support vaccine purchase for low- and middle-income countries in partnership with the Pan American Health Organization.
Early in his career when he saw firsthand the difficulties of providing surgical care for children in Bosnia following the civil war, pediatric surgeon Henry Rice began to appreciate the circumstances in which many health care providers in low-resources settings administer care. He admired his Bosnian colleagues who continued to show up each day even though it had been months since they had received any pay. Several years later he worked in Vietnam with a pediatric surgeon from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where they again witnessed how surgical systems can successfully grow in areas recovering from conflict.
“No matter the country, I have yet to understand how the very young can be so strong and resilient in the face of such adversity,” said Rice. “Every day, I am humbled to have a chance to work with such remarkable children.”
Currently the Chief of Pediatric Surgery at Duke Medical Center, Rice now leads a team from Duke at the Moore Pediatric Surgery Center in Guatemala. During their most recent visit in September, the team worked with local providers from Guatemala to perform 51 pediatric general surgeries and urology procedures. Learn more about Rice’s work in Guatemala.
Lavanya Vasudevan grew up in the suburbs of Mumbai, where she witnessed stark economic and social disparities resulting in poor access to health services for a majority of the population. From a very young age, Vasudevan was interested in exploring disease processes and their causes. Interested in using innovative technologies to improve maternal and child health in resource-limited settings, she teamed up with Alain Labrique from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to design and implement an innovative mobile phone-based vaccine registry which allows community health workers to track vaccinations provided to infants in Bangladesh, thereby ensuring timely vaccinations.
“Innovation sparks change,” said Vasudevan, “so be creative and follow through.”
Vasudevan currently works as a research scholar at the Duke Global Health Institute and as an associate in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
