Dressed in a smart suit and blue tie, Kassahun had been waiting inside the gate since early morning.  He’d been told it was too late, but he showed up anyway.  The doors opened and he watched while the crowd poured in.  Two hours later, he was still waiting, with that pleading, hungry look of a young man who didn’t get this kind of chance very often.  Finally one of the staff took pity on him and let him in. 

Kassahun wasn’t applying for a visa.  Nor was he vying for a ticket to a rock concert.  He was an Ethiopian medical student attending a continuing medical education conference in Addis Ababa.  

On April 11th and 12th, 2008, over 500 medical professionals registered at the First Annual International Continuing Medical Educational Conference (CME) at the prestigious United Nations Conference Center in Addis Ababa.  In the United States where CME is required to renew a medical license, this kind of event is so common as to feel burdensome at times, but that wasn’t the case this morning.   Long before the opening, the massive conference hall was nearly full.  They had come to hear some of the best researchers and clinicians in their fields deliver twenty-four sessions on updated research and disease management, covering topics like HIV Resistance Issues, Diabetes, Hepatitis B, Deep Vein Thrombosis, Central Nervous System Infections, Imaging Studies, Acute Wound Management.  Included were some exciting non-clinical topics never offered before, such as Telemedicine, Leadership and Business Management.  They had come from all walks of the medical community – physicians in private practice, university medical faculty, nursing students, public health workers, hoping to connect with other professionals with shared needs and interests.  The program listed some of the most prestigious names in medical research today: the Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins University, Duke University.  Among the participants were an Ethiopian aviation medical doctor, a kidney transplant specialist from India, a Russian Red Cross worker, even an American veterinarian.  They crowded into the sessions – some of them standing room only – taking notes and listening with a focused energy generally seen in educational settings of the highest caliber.  Admission was free, but no one was taking the opportunity for granted.

Addis Ababa is home to hundreds of international humanitarian and non-governmental organizations focused on improving the quality of health care for a nation with a staggering population of over seventy-five million.  In the capital there are countless small clinics, and the government’s mammoth Black Lion Hospital employs a staff of thousands.  These professionals face some of greatest challenges in health today, and they’re doing it with extremely limited resources.  

These overwhelming problems were the topic of conversation when physicians Akeza Teame and Matthias Lademann sat down to lunch in Addis one day six months ago.  As Chief Medical Officer at the United Nations Health Care Center in Addis, Dr. Lademann, a German physician with a specialty in internal medicine, was deeply concerned about the inadequate continuing education opportunities available to his staff.   Soon after his arrival in 2006, he made it a priority to initiate a program offering high quality lectures to the physicians working at his UN Clinic.  He found a kindred spirit in  Dr. Teame, a dynamic young Ethiopian with a specialty in infectious diseases, who had given up a promising future in the U.S. to return to his homeland.  Determined to make a difference, Dr. Teame dreamed of offering services that held to the same standards of excellence he had seen in the U.S.  The two men agreed on this:  the billions of dollars now being channeled into Africa for health spending – most within the past eight years – would not yield effective, sustainable results without improvements in the local infrastructure.  Above all, quality care requires that medical workers have access to updated research and methods.  The Ethiopian Medical Association offered some continuing medical education, but it lacked the resources to do it on an ambitious international scale.

CMEs in the United States find ready funding from corporate sponsors, but big pharmaceuticals have little interest in countries that can’t afford their products and services.  With neither money nor sponsors, Matthias and Akeza turned to their friends.  Akeza brought in Marguerite Callaway, a health-care systems consultant and president of Callaway Group, LLC. from Chicago, and Jim Everett, a respected mentor of Akeza’s with international expertise and the resources of the Ethiopian Health Support Foundation, a Kansas City-based charitable organization.  An incredible stroke of luck landed an event coordinator on their doorstep: Ethiopian-born Yoadan Tilahun, the wife of Akeza’s childhood friend, came to Addis on vacation.  An experienced event planner with her own business in Washington D.C., she accepted the challenge with only a promise of payment.   

Through his local contacts, Matthias attracted some of the best talent from Addis Ababa University, specialists who had already lectured in his internal UN continuing education initiative.  With persistence, he was able to obtain the endorsement of the Ethiopian Medical Association and the participation of Dr. Gemechis Mamo, Secretary of the EMA, who would open the conference.

  Over the next six months, there were moments when each of them was on the verge of giving up; strapped for funding, they feared they were dreaming too big and aiming too high.  There were so many pieces to fit together, and the only glue was their visionary leadership and the power of their dream.  This conference was about much more than sharing knowledge.  They wanted to build bridges.  They wanted to offer a forum where the diaspora of Ethiopian-born physicians, most of them living in the United States, might bring their expertise home and share it with their native colleagues.  They wanted to create strategic partnerships.  Above all, they wanted the event to reflect their own standards of excellence, and they wanted the participants to be recognized and valued for the intelligent, compassionate professionals that they are.  

    Somehow, miraculously, it began to come together.  Anonymous benefactors began to pony up.  Presenters offered to pay their own expenses.  Exhibitors – many of them local – trickled in.  With no money for publicity they relied on press releases, posters and good old fashioned word of mouth.

    Based on an optimistic estimate of 250 participants, they raised enough money to include the Sheraton-catered lunch at no charge.  Less than a week before the conference, they had nearly 500 registrations and not enough in the kitty to feed them.  Dr. Lademann began to stew.  He was in such a state that his head nurse noticed and asked what was bothering him.  “I need a miracle,” he said.  “Be specific,” she said.  “I need $7,000.”  “Let me see what I can do,” she replied.  That afternoon, she gave him a call.  “It’s done.  You have the money.”

    The pioneering effort resulted in an overwhelmingly successful, well-organized conference with a record-breaking attendance.  Dr. Yewondwossen Tedesse of Addis Ababa University summed it up best.  “The high standards set by this CME would possibly elevate the standards of other CMEs that follow, and inviting international speakers would allow people practicing here to create links with people working in other facilities and may open ways for training and research.”

It was the kind of event that drew the diaspora home, some of them for the first time in over twenty years.  Thanks to the vision and tenacity of a few dedicated people, dialogs were opened, and new ways of doing things were learned.  Bridges were built between continents, old friendships were renewed, and seeds were planted for an ongoing and robust continuing medical education program in Ethiopia.  


By Janice Graham