18 Buffalo Business Spring 2020
It was mid-May, and Larry Gersz was ready
to hit the ground running in Kingston, Jamaica.
With three years of medical school and one
year of his MBA complete, the dual MD/MBA
student was there to help launch a diabetes
informatics network. He only had a month to
accomplish his mission, so he reached out by
email to several stakeholders to set up
meetings.
But he didn't get any responses. "No one
was answering any of my emails!" he says. "I
was getting nervous about what I would be able
to accomplish in the four short weeks I'd be
down here."
Getting to square one
For Gersz, connections in his dual degree
program landed him an opportunity to pursue
interests in travel and global health. During the
MBA portion of his program, he talked regu-
larly with Dorothy Siaw-Asamoah, faculty
director of global programs in the School of
Management. Through her, he learned of a
new collaboration between UB and the
University of West Indies (UWI) that was part
of UB's Center for Integrated Global Bio-
medical Sciences (CIGBS).
Under the mentorship of UWI Professor
John Lindo, Gersz's role was to serve as facilita-
tor among the various stakeholders involved
in the creation of the diabetes informatics
network.
"Our vision was to use the UB -UWI
partnership to enhance the overall research
capabilities of Kingston by creating a collabora-
tive digital information network," says Gersz.
"This would allow for larger patient data sets,
stronger data analysis and better quality over-
all of research. For it to be a success, I needed
to combine my management perspective and
BY JACQUELINE MOLIK GHOSEN
COLLABORATING
IN KINGSTON
From left, Larry Gersz and UWI Professor John Lindo
