Michael Rich, MD, MPH has lead Partners In Health’s first African project, in rural Rwanda, since 2005. There, he has overseen the overhaul of an abandoned hospital site into a fully functioning facility that includes five inpatient wards with over 80 beds, an operating room, a full laboratory, x-ray capabilities, blood transfusion services, an emergency room, women’s health clinic, food services, and laundry. The hospital serves a population of 200,000, including 1200 HIV/AIDS patients in treatment and more than 600 infants born to HIV infected mothers in a program aimed at preventing the babies from contracting the virus. In the summer of 2006, Bill and Melinda Gates visited the project, as did former President Bill Clinton, whose foundation is a partner in the project. After his visit, Clinton told the Financial Times that what he had seen there was “remarkable.” In addition to his work in Rwanda, Dr. Rich has also continued his work as an international leader in the treatment of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. In 2006, he served as Editor-in-Chief for the World Health Organization’s new standards for care and treatment of the disease.

After two years in the Peace Corps, Dr. Rich received his MD from the University of Massachusetts Medical School in 1993. His clinical training was in Internal Medicine at St. Vincent’s Hospital and Medical Center in New York from 1993 to 1996. He then spent two years at a community health center in Lynn, Massachusetts and spent 1999 developing medical programs in Uzbekistan for Doctors Without Borders. Dr. Rich received his Masters in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health in 2000.