VCU to host international childbirth injury expert from Ethiopia

By Michael Ford and Leah Burton

WHAT:          The Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine will present a special lecture by Dr. Catherine Hamlin, one of the world’s leading experts on obstetric fistula, a debilitating injury among young women in the developing world, caused by the lack of medical intervention during prolonged, obstructed labor. 

A specialist in obstetrics and gynecology, Dr. Hamlin is co-founder and director of the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia, where she has devoted 44 years of her life to the treatment of poor, rural women who have suffered devastating childbirth injuries. 

In June 2003, Dr. Tilahun Adera, professor and chair, preventive medicine and community health in the VCU School of Medicine, visited Dr. Hamlin and toured the Fistula Hospital while in Ethiopia and invited Dr. Hamlin to address the VCU community on this issue.

The young women affected – many still in their teens – are left incontinent and in some cases crippled, from nerve damage. The World Health Organization estimates over 2 million women and girls currently live with this condition worldwide.

A fistula is an abnormal connection or opening between two organs or parts of the body that are not normally connected.

Dr. Hamlin will be honored later this month when she will be inducted as an honorary fellow in the American College of Surgeons.

WHERE:         VCU Medical Center, MCV Alumni House, 1016 E. Clay St., room 114

WHO:              ·         Dr. Eugene P. Trani, VCU president
·         Dr. Catherine Hamlin, director, Addis Ababa Fistula 
          Hospital, Ethiopia
·         Dr. David C. Sarrett, associate vice president,
          health sciences/academic affairs 
·         Dr. Herber H. Newsome, dean, School of Medicine
·         Dr. Tilahun Adera, chair, preventive medicine and
          community health
·         Mrs. Inger Rice, VCU benefactor

WHEN:            10:30 a.m., Monday, Oct. 6, 2003