August 22, 2019
Kathy McCarty Visits From Chidamoyo
The Center for Global Health Nursing and the School of Nursing are pleased to welcome Kathy McCarty as she visits University of Washington School of Nursing on September 12th and 13th. She will be speaking about “Practicing Health Care in a Rural Zimbabwean Setting” at 11 am – 12 pm on Thursday September 12th in HSB T661, immediately following her presentation she will welcome an open forum brown bag session where attendees can sit down with her.
Kathy McCarty is a long-term advanced practice nurse in Zimbabwe, at Chidamoyo Hospital, Ms. McCarty got her credentials and started her nursing practice in California. Ms. McCarty was motivated into pursuing a nursing career after a visit to Zimbabwe in the mid-70s—where she realized acquiring nursing skills could help her contribute to care provision in settings such as Zimbabwe. Kathy has been practicing in Chidamoyo—a rural hospital near Karoi, Zimbabwe, since 1991. As the Sister-in-Charge at Chidamoyo, Kathy has many responsibilities besides administrative tasks and clinical care, such as supervising all nursing staff in the hospital, and in their outreach clinics. Kathy has also housed and mentored hundreds of Zimbabwean and international students who are interested in a variety of health careers including nursing, medicine, physical therapy, physicians’ assistants, and lab scientists. Under her direction, Chidamoyo serves as a research site for many collaborative research projects related to improving HIV care among children, teens, and adults. In addition, Chidamoyo served as a site for an implementation science project examining how to incorporate HPV self-sampling among women in the community and HPV testing in the early detection and prevention of cervical cancer. She maintains a blog about her experiences at Chidamoyo which you can check out here. You can also read more about her research about HPV testing here
If you are interested in supporting Chidamoyo Hospital in Zimbabwe, the local chapter of Friends of Chidamoyo is hosting a benefit auction on September 7th, 2019. Event information and tickets for the auction are still available here.