Center for Health and Human Rights

Established in 1999, the Griffin Center for Health and Human Rights promotes global health and human rights practices and policies while developing new and effective strategies for dealing with complex humanitarian and silent emergencies. The Griffin Center is a research and training project of the Yale-Griffin Internal Medicine Residency Program and Griffin Hospital Department of Medical Education located at Griffin Hospital in Derby, CT. The center designs, develops, implements and analyzes health and human rights community projects in the Lower Naugatuck Valley, Griffin Hospital’s primary service area, as well as at the state, national and international level. As part of the unique design of the IM/PM program, residents are encouraged to complete rotations and research projects that focus on community based health, public health and health as a social justice and human rights issue, therefore bridging a gap between academia and grass-root human rights advocacy.

Objectives

The Griffin Center focuses on conducting research, providing technical assistance, acting as advocates on sensitive public health policy issues and training health professionals in the area of health and human rights to use a multidisciplinary approach. More specifically, we seek to:

1. Develop human rights training strategies that resolve human rights abuses and encourage humanitarian approaches while giving young health professionals the tools for a productive health and human rights practice. Many US medical schools have incorporated some health and human rights teachings in their curriculum, however training is entirely absent from the programs. While programs ponder over how to instill professionalism in young trainees, little effort is made to implement and convey the human rights professional values in medicine such as altruism, accountability, duty, honor, integrity and respect for others. Ideally, such training bridges this gap. Intervention in silent emergencies brings attention to issues of justice and the redistribution of political and economic power in the post-conflict era internationally and at home.
2. Define the role of health care professionals in humanitarian crises. Ethical concerns arise in the conflict between the role as the neutral health care provider and as patient right’s advocates. The stress of working with many actors and Non-Governmental Organizations, with competing agendas, can frustrate and discourage health care workers who are committed to the health and human rights cause.
3. Influence health and human rights policies through collaboration with United Nation’s agencies, partnerships with human rights organizations, NGOs, community health centers and other health professional training programs. The center conducts community-oriented research in the area of health and human rights to analyze and assess the needs for, and efficacy of, intervention.

International Health Rotations

International practicum sites, with designated preceptors, provide students with the opportunity to research and implement public health and human rights projects within the context of a regionally balanced program. Administered by the Griffin Center for Health and Human Rights, international health projects promote appreciation for health as a question of social justice and as a guaranteed human right. Furthermore, the intense experience of working in a developing country successfully develops residents' professionalism, ethics and communication skills as part of the ACGME competencies. The center has already completed a wide-range of projects around the globe. In East Timor, outpatient care was provided to hundreds of patients a day, when malaria and tuberculosis were as common as the flu virus. The Griffin Center also taught essential clinical skills to Timorese medical students. In Guyana, physicians spent a month researching the nutrition of Guyanese women located in rural, suburban and urban populations. As part of the international health rotation, they partnered with the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation, seeing patients with chronic, infectious diseases and HIV. While in Nicaragua the Griffin Center team evaluated the health worker leadership program by interviewing patients, clinicians and administrators on the enhancement of leadership skills for clinicians and administrators, and additional rotations are currently under development. Participation in at least one international health rotation is highly encouraged by the program, and residents are allowed a considerable amount of flexibility in the design and objectives for the rotations. Selection of sites is based on both the skill level of the resident (clinical, research, language) and the appropriateness of the project for the setting. International research projects and rotations are often used as an opportunity to develop a resident's thesis as part of the requirements of the Yale School of Public Health.