HAITI MEDICAL EDUCATION PROJECT
BOARD
CRUFF RENARD, MD
BOARD MEMBER, PRESIDENT
Cruff Renard grew up in the Central Plateau of Haiti and received his MD from the State University of Haiti in Port-au-Prince. After he completed his social service as a general practitioner in rural Haiti, he joined Partners in Health (PIH), where he served for five years as both Director of TB and HIV/AIDS programs at Bon Sauveur Hospital in Cange and Ste. Therese Hospital in Hinche. Through PIH, he also served as a senior trainer for the Caribbean HIV/AIDS and Regional Training Network (CHART), teaching physicians, medical students, nurses and community healthcare workers about HIV and tuberculosis management. In June 2013, Dr. Renard completed his internal medicine residency training (primary care and social internal medicine) at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, NY. Dr. Renard currently works as an internist/hospitalist at St. Elizabeth Physicians, in northern Kentucky. His main interests are in global health and medical education. He joined the staff of the HME Project in February 2011.
galit sacajiu, md, mph
board member, medical education director
Galit graduated from New York University’s College of Arts and Sciences, and then continued at the NYU School of Medicine. She completed an Internal Medicine Residency at NYU/Bellevue Hospital and Preventative Medicine training at the NYC Department of Health and the Columbia School of Public Health, where she also earned a Masters in Public Health.
After completing her training, she worked as a faculty member at Montefiore Medical Center (MMC) and Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AECOM), where she served as the associate director of the Social Medicine and Primary Care Residency programs. Her time at MMC was allocated to teaching, social epidemiology research and clinical medicine. Among other responsibilities, she was the director of the residency research curriculum and was the founder and director of a Research Based Health Activism course. With the intention to work in the field of international health, she changed her academic status to an adjunct after ten years as faculty at MMC/AECOM. She has been involved with the Haiti Medical Education (HME) Project since April 2010.
Roberta Brenza
board member
Roberta Brenza has a B.A. in psychology and human development with a minor in French, and an M.A. in child and developmental psychology from the University of Kansas. Roberta has contributed to research protocols in the US and internationally in a wide range of fields including psychophysiology, child cognitive psychology, and child mental health. Roberta later applied her passion for social justice to child public policy in Illinois and Colorado, advocating on the state and federal levels to increase publicly funded child care and early childhood education programs for low-income families. More recently, Roberta has focussed on her family while continuing to serve on nonprofit boards. Since joining HME's board in 2014, Roberta has applied her skills in French to translations of training materials for HME's ongoing in-country trainings in Comprehensive Advanced Life Support, a number of which Roberta has attended at various sites across Haiti to offer language as well as general administrative support.
alex wright, md
board member
Alex Wright, MD, is an internist/hospitalist from Louisville, KY. He received his BS in Biology and his MD from the University of Kentucky in Lexington. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine and Social Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, NY. During his residency, Alex did an international rotation at the University Hospital in Mbarara, Uganda. Following residency, Alex and a partner opened a private practice in the Bronx. He now works as a hospitalist for Norton Healthcare in Louisville. He has traveled to Haiti to supervise students and residents through his work for HME.
CONSULTANTS
TARA ANDERSON
COMMUNICATIONS Director
Tara brings a decade of experience as a writer and radio producer to her work with the HME Project. She holds bachelor’s degrees in music and journalism from the University of Kentucky, and a masters degree in public communications from Fordham University in NYC. She spent 9 years at Fordham’s public radio station, WFUV, serving as assistant program director, while freelancing as a radio reporter for nationally syndicated radio shows including All Things Considered and The World. She currently makes her home in Louisville, Kentucky, where she works as a part-time radio host and a freelance writer, in addition to her work with the HME Project.
NANCY SOHLER, PhD
Director OF RESEARCH EDUCATION
Nancy Sohler conducts research on accessing quality health care, social/cultural influences on health behaviors, and novel strategies to deliver health care for disadvantaged populations. She is an Associate Medical Professor at the City College of New York.
Carlyle Schlabach, MD
Director OF emergency training
Carlyle Schlabach MD is the former Assistant Medical Director, Emergency Department and is a Clinician at Coryell Memorial Hospital, Gatesville, TX. He is Director of Emergency Medicine Training for HME, Chair of the Global CALS (Comprehensive Advanced Life Support) Planning Committee and Chair of the CALS Essentials Curriculum Committee. His passion is to train Haitian physicians and nurses in emergency medicine and train Haitian clinicians to become CALS trainers.
Jhonson Marc, MD
Haiti-Based Coordinator
Jhonson Marc, MD, graduated from the School of Medicine and Pharmacy at the Université d'État d'Haïti (UEH) in 2012. After receiving his medical degree, he spent his social service year working as a general physician in the Artibonite department of Haiti. From 2013-2016, he pursued a specialization in internal medicine at UEH. He currently works as a clinician in Port-au-Prince.
STAFF
AIsha Saint-lot
Administrative Director
Aisha Saint-lot grew up in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. She studied at Baruch College in New York where she earned BBA from the Zicklin School of Business with a concentration in Marketing Management and two minors in both Art History and Business Communications. She actively works in direct contact with our Doctors both in the United States and in Haiti.