Byline: Lindy Kravec
A 40-year-old mother of three walks for nearly two hours to reach a clinic in the rural village of San Jose del Negrito, Honduras. She has been diagnosed with diabetes but has difficulty managing the disease. Her diet consists mainly of foods that can cause a rise in blood sugar levels, such as fried plantains, tortillas and rice. She has a limited knowledge of the dangers of diabetes, no access to certain medications and no way of monitoring her condition on a regular basis.
She is not alone.
The incidence of diabetes in Honduras has doubled in the last 25 years, according to a World Health Organization study that found more than 1,720 deaths in 2024 related to diabetes and high blood glucose in that country.
Martha Ndung’u, assistant professor of pharmacy and therapeutics, School of Pharmacy, is passionate about changing that statistic. She works diligently to understand the cultural and social factors that influence diabetes management in Honduras and other underserved areas of the world.
Ndung’u visited the clinic in San Jose del Negrito, Honduras, in March 2025 through the privately funded nonprofit organization Shoulder-to-Shoulder Pittsburgh-San Jose. Over a two-week period, she and a multidisciplinary team of doctors, nurses and physician assistants collaborated with local health care providers, sharing evidence-based practices in diabetes care and providing much-needed education, medicine and monitoring supplies.
She encountered Hondurans who reported using an herbal remedy, Costus igneus (known to some as the “insulin plant”), on a daily basis. She believes that while more scientific research is needed to better comprehend the efficacy of the plant, it’s important to recognize the usage and perceived benefit of traditional herbal remedies.
“Respecting the culture is key to gaining trust,” notes Ndung’u.
On Track to Make a Difference
Back in Pittsburgh, Ndung’u offers Pitt Pharmacy students the opportunity to personalize their education, gain insight through hands-on experience, and develop new perspectives on approaching underserved care. She does it through a unique academic track—one that she herself pursued: the Area of Concentration—Global Health (ARCO-GH).
ARCO-GH students follow the standard PharmD curriculum and then choose six elective credits that can range from women’s health or smoking cessation in underserved settings to principles of global health informatics. They must complete two advanced pharmacy practice experiences in the area of global health, either in the United States or abroad, as well as a special project that has global health implications or a focus on health disparities and health equity.
As part of this work, every year, approximately 10 Pitt ARCO-GH students join health care providers and other students from Pitt and other institutions in a medical brigade sponsored by Shoulder-to-Shoulder. They work directly with patients in the clinic in San Jose del Negrito, collecting data about medication access and assessing inventory management at the clinic.
Alexandria Taylor, a 2020 graduate, says her experiences abroad shaped the way she practices here in Pittsburgh. “I am more empathetic about what it’s like to navigate another country’s health system and the additional challenges that people face when they do not speak the native language.
“Furthermore, I gained a true appreciation of the value of ‘access to care’ when we walked three miles up a mountain through rough terrain for a home visit with an 80-year-old woman with Parkinson’s disease.”
Today, as a senior clinical pharmacist at UPMC St. Margaret in Pittsburgh and the director for global health within the UPMC St. Margaret Family Medicine Residency Program, Taylor continues her involvement with the Shoulder-to-Shoulder Pittsburgh-San Jose program. She coordinates pharmacy learners for the medical brigades and manages the procurement of medications for the clinic’s in-house dispensary.
Taylor says her time in the ARCO-GH program taught her how to collaborate effectively, build capacity and foster mutually beneficial partnerships—skills that help pharmacists tend to all medically underserved individuals, not just those in low-resourced countries.
Sharon E. Connor, associate professor of pharmacy and therapeutics, brings her extensive knowledge of serving in resource-limited settings like the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Malawi, Kenya and Ethiopia to her role as the director of Pitt’s Grace Lamsam Pharmacy Program for Underserved Populations, which provides services in the Pittsburgh area.
“Although the School of Pharmacy has always offered experiential rotations in places like Honduras, Namibia and Malawi, our global health concentration goes beyond overseas travel,” says Connor. “It is designed to give students the opportunity to better understand the challenges of serving patients in any low-resourced setting—whether it’s in a rural community in a developing nation or at a homeless shelter in our own back yard.”
This is an excerpt from an article in Pitt Pharmacy Magazine’s spring 2026 issue.