As a pediatrics resident and an infectious disease fellow, Dr. Bryan Vonasek participated in an infectious disease fellowship and contributed to multiple clinical projects in the city of Lilongwe, Malawi at Kamuzu Central Hospital. He joined Michigan State University in 2024 in a unique faculty position that has him based half the year in Malawi, but in a new setting there for him: in Blantyre city working with new partners there at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, Kamuzu University of Health Sciences, and different research institutions. Currently, Dr. Vonasek spends much of his time in Malawi researching how to better diagnose and treat tuberculosis in young children.
“TB is really hard to diagnose in young children, and there are some questions too about what the proper dose for the treatment of TB should be,” Vonasek said. “So we have a research project right now to look at those challenges with the larger vision of reducing suffering from TB in the pediatric population.”
In addition to his tuberculosis research, Dr. Vonasek mentors Malawian and MSU medical trainees on their respective research projects, which mainly focus on treating infectious diseases in low-resource areas. Dr. Vonasek has taken over many teaching responsibilities from Dr. Terri Taylor, who has led groundbreaking research in cerebral malaria and supervised MSU medical students on elective rotations in Blantyre for nearly four decades. With Dr. Taylor retiring from her work in Malawi, Bryan is now leading the Education Abroad program Taylor established there, which he hopes will continue to draw interest from COM and CHM students.
“The elective clerkship in Malawi is a long-standing program started by Professor Terri Taylor,” Vonasek said. “My kind of overall goal with [the program] is to continue and maintain what has been a very successful and very fruitful experience for students over the past two decades.”
Now under the guidance of Dr. Vonasek, this opportunity is one of the longest-standing medical Education Abroad programs offered by MSU. It gives medical students unique opportunities to learn about local health care practices, study infectious diseases in the region, and experience local culture.
“The Malawi Education Abroad program is a program for fourth-year medical students,” Dr. Vonasek said. “In the spring semester, students come to Malawi for usually six weeks at a time on an elective clerkship rotation where their main focus is to work in the local hospital, take care of patients, and attend educational sessions to learn how to provide medical care in a low-resource environment.”