Jacaranda Health: Maternal Health Fellowship

Background

Jacaranda Health is a start up social enterprise that aims to set a new a new standard for maternity care in East Africa.

We are combining business and clinical innovations to create a self-sustaining and scalable chain of clinics that provide reproductive health services to poor urban women.

Our model is a combination of two tightly-integrated services

(a) Jacaranda Maternities near the slums where women can go for respectful obstetric care, safe delivery, and postnatal care; and

(b) mobile vans that create a direct link with our patients, generate demand and healthy outcomes through antenatal care and birth preparedness.

Jacaranda has received awards for its model, and we are also planning to work as an “innovation laboratory” for new approaches in improving maternal health, from outreach and marketing, to low-cost mobile technologies

We are piloting the model in Nairobi with a Jacaranda Maternity and mobile unit. We have just launched our first mobile clinic and are providing services to women in peri-urban Nairobi. We are working quickly to prepare to launch a fixed clinic for deliveries and basic emergency obstetric care.

Job Summary

Jacaranda Health is looking for a medical student or MPH with experience and interest in maternal health to help us develop evidence-based protocols for our new maternity clinic.

This is an opportunity for an ambitious student or recent graduate to spend three to six months working with some of the most exciting innovations in maternal health. We have a great team in Nairobi, and good advisors internationally, and would like to have some help from someone who has a combination of a clinical and public health research background

Responsibilities

The Maternal Health Fellow would work with our international clinical advisors, our front-line clinical staff, and our operations manager to help develop a set of clinical protocols that are truly world-class and evidence based.

This will require research, compiling protocols from our library of protocols and academic research in maternal health, and vetting them with our clinical staff in the field. We want to take the best practices from maternal health globally and translate it into a set of protocols that provide clear checklists and decision support for our frontline nursing staff.

There will also be an opportunity to get involved in other clinical activities, such as systematizing our clinic processes, working with our partners at Harvard School of Public Health on our impact evaluation, and some of the new technologies that Jacaranda is piloting.

Timing

This is a full-time three to six month position, preferably based in Nairobi. Start date as soon as possible: August or September through November. The position is a volunteer fellowship, but Jacaranda can offer a stipend for expenses and housing.

Qualifications

• MPH or medical resident, with experience working in maternal health, ideally from both a clinical and a research perspective
• Highly resourceful, independent, and self-starting
• Demonstrated professional experience and an interest in maternal health
• Flexible and easy-going enough to work in a fluid, cross-cultural startup environment in Nairobi
• Ability to communicate findings compellingly to colleagues and advisors
• Desired: experience working in East Africa

Benefits

• Opportunity to work with our advisors and partners from obstetricians at Harvard and internationally, to experienced nurses and midwives in Kenya
• Exposure to all facets of building innovative maternal health organization. You will have a chance to see first hand the clinical, operations, marketing, technology, and business elements that go into building a successful social enterprise
• Learn about maternity experience and clinical challenges faced by low-income mothers in peri-urban areas
• Significant responsibility and independence

Additional Comments

Interested candidates may apply by email with an up to date CV and cover letter to jobs@jacarandahealth.org.

Please put “Maternal Health Fellowship” in the subject line.