Dr. Shant Shekherdimian, associate professor of surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, recently represented Armenia during the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly, where he presented policies, legislation and programs he and his team have spearheaded in that country.
Shekherdimian, who has served as head of Armenia’s Primary Care Strengthening Task Force since 2021, participated in a main high-level meeting and some satellite sessions that included presentations on recent reforms in Armenia on the country’s path toward implementing universal health care. The health care meetings were held September 24-25.
“Much of this work has had the direct involvement of our trainees from UCLA, who included numerous undergraduate students, medical students and residents, making it all the more rewarding and exciting,” said Shekherdimian, who is also interim chief of the division of pediatric surgery.
Among their achievements, the trainees have:
- Helped develop a policy dashboard for the Ministry of Health, and contributed to the drafting of legislation on physician licensing in Armenia
- Created a monitoring and evaluation framework to assess the impact of newly developed primary care curriculum and patient outcomes in a Ministry of Health-led pilot project implementing a new model of family medicine
- Assessed cancer-screening practices, the results of which have been used to shape the policies on national cancer screening programs.
