The Global Health Delivery Project
Our mission is to improve the health of people everywhere by supporting clinicians at the frontlines to make better decisions and deliver value-based health care using proven approaches and evidence.
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Division of Global Health Equity
75 Francis Street
Boston, MA 02115
Learning Firsthand, Virtually: A Spotlight of Libby Schaefer
Libby completed a four year residency within Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital, along with an Internship in Family Medicine at UCSF, Santa Rosa. She received her MPH in global health from Harvard School of Public Health and worked as an Attending Physician at Brigham and Women’s within the Departments of General Internal Medicine and Global Health. Previously she worked with Partners In Health in Rwanda as both a medical student and resident and with PIH in Haiti as a resident. She also worked with the Himalayan Health Exchange in Northern India, in The Gambia, West Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer, and within inpatient medicine and pediatrics in La Paz, Bolivia and Beijing.
Improving health care delivery requires that we learn firsthand from each other’s experiences. Virtual professionals platforms enable us to share these experiences widely. We’re delighted to share the recent work of a GHDI alum, Dr. Libby Schaefer, who confronted a diagnostic challenge in her clinic and wanted to share the lessons she learned with a broader audience.
On February 12, 2015, her work was featured on New England Journal of Medicine website as an Interactive Medical Case, Itching for a Diagnosis, with co-authors Anand Vaidyd, MD, Helmut G. Rennke, MD, and Julie Palik, MD. Dr. Schaefer shared that she “enjoyed working with a nephrologist, endocrinologist and pathologist to develop the case further.”
The NEJM’s Interactive Medical Cases present a patient history with a series of questions and exercises designed to test a physician’s diagnostic and treatment skills. They’re also able to earn continuing medical education credit.
According to Dr. Schaefer, “The NEJM cases are geared towards the primary care physician who is responsible for being familiar with a wide range of presentations and work ups.” The cases are shared on “an interactive case based module to facilitate learning and retention.” The cases are open-access and available to a global audience.