A research project among the wards of the Ambrosoli Memorial Hospital in Kalongo
18 February 2016 - A month in Uganda to study a valid alternative to incubators. This is the thesis experience of Giulia Spina, graduated in Medicine and Surgery at theUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma last July. Her research project in neonatology, shared in Africa with her colleague and friend Costanza Cutrona and supported atUCBM by prof. Pietro Ferrara, thesis supervisor, by Dr. Laura Andrissi, by prof. Massimo Ciccozzi and by Dr. Francesca Farchi, is now in the publication phase, having provided results of considerable interest. “During our stay in Africa – explains Giulia – we experienced the benefits of a procedure that consists in putting the newborn baby in contact with the mother, and that scientific literature had already demonstrated to be equivalent if not even more effective than incubators".
The formative experience of the young woman – who, again through prof. Giovanni Mottini ofUCBM, had already gone to Africa, Kenya, in 2011 - however she did not limit herself to the research project for her degree thesis: “Where there is little workforce - she explains - you are necessarily valued. That's why I practiced a lot and I grew a lot. The best thing then was being able to leave something important at the hospital, teaching the whole procedure from scratch to all the staff in the obstetrics room, starting from the values to be monitored”. And he adds, brightening his face: "In two years, as a graduate student, I will be able to be even more useful".
In the meantime, always together with Costanza, he organizes fundraising for the Ambrosoli Memorial Hospital, founded by Father Giuseppe Ambrosoli and financed by the Ambrosoli Foundation. And think back to the month spent in Africa: “Volunteering in schools and orphanages around the village, I asked the children what they wanted to be when they grew up. One of them answered me: «The doctor!». This was the best moment".