Support UT Southwestern's
Global Stroke Training and Education
Expanding access to lifesaving care through UT Southwestern's global partnerships.
Your Impact
Your gift supports UT Southwestern's global impact in stroke training and education; helping train physicians, expand access to stroke treatment, and build lasting capacity in communities where specialized neurological care has never existed.
Through UT Southwestern's collaboration with the BORNE (Bahir Dar Outreach for Neurology Education) initiative and the African Stroke Organization Conference (ASOC), your support advances physician education, research collaboration, and stroke care that benefits patients, trainees, and researchers across two continents.
From No Neurologist to a Continental Movement
In 2016, Bahir Dar University (BDU) and its teaching hospital, which serves more than seven million people in Ethiopia, had no neurologist on staff. Dr. Mehari Gebreyohanns of UT Southwestern began collaborating with Bahir Dar University faculty to strengthen neurology education and improve stroke care. The following year, seed funding established UT Southwestern's Global Neurology elective and launched the BORNE (Bahir Dar Outreach for Neurology Education) initiative, led by Dr. Gebreyohanns. Around this time Dr. Gebreyohanns also developed the first Amharic term for stroke to facilitate stroke awareness in the Amharic language.
In 2019, UT Southwestern participated in the BORNE Symposium sending a 21 person, multidisciplinary team representing Neurology, PM&R, Emergency Medicine, and more to provide hands-on training, teaching, and stroke education to physicians and staff at Bahir Dar University.
A Continent Wide Stroke Conference, 'Borne' in Dallas
In 2020, building on the success of the BORNE Symposium in Bahir Dar UT Southwesternern faculty Dr. Mehari Gebreyohanns collaborated with stroke experts across Africa to establish the African Stroke Organization Conference (ASOC). Since its inaugural conference in 2021, ASOC has become Africa's leading scientific stroke meeting, drawing nearly 1,000 attendees, featured almost 200 scientific presentations, and awarding 27 travel scholarships to early-career researchers.
In January 2023, this collaboration helped Bahir Dar become one of the first two public hospitals in Ethiopia to offer thrombolytic stroke therapy and one of the World Stroke Organization's first pilot stroke units in Africa.
What began with a partnership at a single teaching hospital has grown into a continent-wide movement advancing stroke education, research, and patient care across Africa.
