Building International Collaborations in South Africa, Tanzania

Penn Dental Medicine is continuing to build upon its international engagement with the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. The signing took place as part of a visit earlier this year by Penn Dental Medicine’s Morton Amsterdam Dean, Dr. Mark S. Wolff, to South Africa and Tanzania.

“We are eager to be building a working relationship with the University of the Witwatersrand,” says Dean Wolff, who signed the MOU with Professor Shabir Madhi, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Witwatersrand. “We look forward to future research collaboration and exchanges between our faculty and students and to working with schools in Southern and Eastern Africa to improve the health of individuals with limited access to oral healthcare.”

On the trip, Dean Wolff also visited Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, meeting at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS) with leadership of the MUHAS Dental School and with the MUHAS Vice

Chancellor, with whom an MOU was also recently executed. While in Tanzania, Dean Wolff also met with the Ministry of Health officials, exploring how Penn Dental Medicine may be able to collaborate on child and maternal health and oral health, including bringing Penn’s research and training experiences in disability and community health to collaborations with the faculty of MUHAS.

The meetings in South Africa and Tanzania were organized and facilitated by the leadership of Henry Schein Cares and the non-profit MCW Global. MCW Global’s work in Tanzania is centered on promoting improved oral health across the country, including underserved communities.

“Connecting Wits, home to Africa’s first dental school and present provider of postgraduate education in all fields for the continent, with MUHAS, which shares MCW Global’s vision of improving access to oral health, Penn is positioned to energize these two anchor schools to continue to train dental faculty for institutions across Africa,” says Dr. Marion Bergman, Director, Health Care Projects, MCW Global.

With the signing of the new MOU with the University of the Witwatersrand, Penn Dental Medicine now has 37 international MOU agreements for exchange with schools around the globe.