Speaker Details

Dr Rodney Finalle

Biography

Dr. Finalle is the Founder and Executive Director of The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Alliance for International Medicine (CHOP-AIM). Dr Finalle is a pediatrician, and the Medical Director of the Children’s Hospital’s Primary Care Center at Cobbs Creek a comprehensive primary care facility in Philadelphia. He is a Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. As a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics (FAAP) he serves on the AAP Section on International Child Health. Dr. Finalle was the former Clinical Director of Global Health Ministry where he guided and provided health care to children in under developed nations of the Caribbean, Central and South America. He completed his pediatric training at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and medical school at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. His international work has included extensive work in Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. Dr. Finalle has worked collaboratively with less developed countries, and through the Alliance for International Medicine he has championed a model which partners a US based tertiary academic health center with a health system in a resource scarce country. The AIM program has successfully developed an interdisciplinary approach utilizing physicians, nurses, and nurse practitioners, residents and medical students to improve children’s health in a population of migrant Haitians living in extreme poverty in the Dominican Republic.

Abstract

Risk Factors for Intrathoracic Tuberculosis in the Economic Migrant Population of Two Dominican Republic Bateyes

Keri A. Cohn, MD, DTMH1, 3 Rodney Finalle, MD,1, 4, 5 Geraldine O’Hare, CRNP,1, 4 Jesús M. Feris,5 Josefina Fernández,5 and Samir S. Shah, MD, MSCE1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8 From the 1Alliance for International Medicine, the Divisions of 2Infectious Diseases and 3General Pediatrics, and the 4Department of Primary Care, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, the 5Departamento de Enfermedades Infecciosas, Clinica Infantil, Robert Reid Cabral, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and the Departments of 6Pediatrics and 7Epidemiology, and the 8Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA. Running title: Tuberculosis in the Dominican Republic Bateyes Address for correspondence: Dr. Samir S. Shah, Division of Infectious Diseases, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Room 1526, North Campus, 34th Street and Civic Center Boulevard, Philadelphia, PA 19104. Telephone: 215-590-4378; Facsimile: 215-590-0426; E-mail: shahs@email.chop.edu Abstract Refugees and economic migrants are high-risk populations for tuberculosis, particularly if they originate in countries with a high incidence of disease. We conducted a cross-sectional study to identify risk factors for intrathoracic tuberculosis among children living in migrant populations in the Dominican Republic bateyes. Definite or possible tuberculosis was diagnosed in 83 (20.8%) of 400 children. Unpasteurized milk consumption was identified as an independent risk factor for intrathoracic tuberculosis (adjusted odds ratio, 3.2; 95% confidence interval: 1.4-7.4) even after adjusting for Bacille Calmette-Guérin vaccination, household size, tuberculosis contacts and age and under varying assumptions about children diagnosed with “possible” tuberculosis. Our data raise the possibility that the high prevalence of tuberculosis in the Dominican Republic bateyes may be attributable to Mycobacterium bovis rather than Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection.