MPH student Dr. Emily Denstedt works with Gorilla Doctors in Rwanda

Dr. Emily Denstedt in Rwanda

Our Gorilla Doctors team has been fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with Emily Denstedt, DVM over the past year during her two stints working at our Regional Headquarters in Rwanda as part of her Master of Public Health degree practicum placement. Dr. Emily applied for this specific program at Ontario Veterinary College at University of Guelph (same alma mater as our Africa Director Dr. Mike Cranfield!) in order to work with Gorilla Doctors in coordination with and thanks to support from our friends at Docs4GreatApes.

Gorilla Doctors recognizes the importance of protecting the health of the local community surrounding the parks as an integral part of our overall mission to protect wild gorillas. In April 2017 at our headquarters, Dr. Emily taught several 4-day Continuing Professional Development (CPD) ophthalmology course to 55 nurses who worked at the health clinics surrounding Volcanoes National Park. Nurses in Rwanda are really motivated to enroll in CPD courses to enhance their knowledge and skills, and as the first point of contact for most people in the community, they are relied upon heavily for a wide range of illnesses and injuries.

Dr. Emily Denstedt teaching ophthalmology course to nurses in Rwanda

Dr. Emily returned to Rwanda in January of this year to help Gorilla Doctors consider ways that it could optimize its Gorilla Conservation Employee Health Program (GCEHP), and to make it more financially sustainable and well aligned with national health care systems in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The overarching goal of the GCEHP is “to improve the health status of the conservation personnel which, in principle, will reduce the risk of zoonotic disease transmission between the mountain gorillas and employees.” Started in 2001, this program delivers  health screenings for researchers, veterinary staff, park rangers, porters, and guides. They, along with their family members, are invited to receive deworming therapy quarterly, as well as attend education sessions on infectious disease prevention.

During her most recent stint with Gorilla Doctors, Dr. Emily had the opportunity to participate in a clinical intervention to treat adult female gorilla Buzinza of Rushegura group in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda. Buzinza had a serious infection invovling her right arm tissue, and Dr. Emily assisted with evaluating the arm injury and taking radiographs using Gorilla Doctors’ portable x-ray machine.

Gorilla Doctors veterinary intervention on wild mountain gorilla Buzinza in Rushegura group

Dr. Emily on her future in One Health and veterinary medicine:

“The work Gorilla Doctors does is the perfect combination of all the things that I love and that I’m trained in—clinical medicine, wildlife health, pathology, public health, and education. I hope to be able to contribute to conservation using a One Health approach in whatever I do in the future, and my time with Gorilla Doctors has only inspired me further to continue on with this type of work. We need veterinarians to help in many of the big challenges our world will be facing in the coming years.”

Dr. Emily Denstedt with nurses in Rwanda