Gene F. Kwan, MD, MPH

Gene F. Kwan, MD, MPH, is a board-certified cardiologist at Boston Medical Center (BMC) and an assistant professor of medicine in the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine. Dr. Kwan's primary professional goal is to push the frontier of global cardiovascular disease epidemiology and health service delivery research through the development, implementation, evaluation, improvement, and dissemination of integrated chronic care programs targeted to overcome specific barriers in rural low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). He has worked in rural Rwanda and Haiti since 2008 in collaboration with local Ministries of Health and the non-governmental organizations Partners In Health and Zanmi Lasante. There, he implemented care models by training local nurses and generalist physicians in simplified protocols to aid in specialty care for the diagnosis and management of non-communicable diseases (NCD) including hypertension, diabetes, heart failure, stroke, and respiratory disease. Dr. Kwan also studies the prevalence of poverty among patients with NCDs to develop approaches to overcome poverty-related barriers. He is working to develop and utilize evidence-based approaches for the understanding of cardiovascular disease in LMICs and influence programmatic development, implementation, and policy.