Cynthia Haq, MD, Visits Lesotho to Strengthen Medical Education

Cynthia Haq, MD, started the year by spending a month as a Fulbright Specialist in Lesotho, a mountainous country of 2.2 million in Southern Africa.

“Lesotho has a severe shortage of health professionals and is preparing to launch their first medical school,” says Haq, a professor emerita of family medicine at UC Irvine. She was grateful to receive a Fulbright award, the third of her career, to help design faculty development programs for physicians. Haq has worked intermittently in Africa since 1986 and has devoted her career to promoting medical education in health professional shortage areas.

“Most of the specialty physicians in Lesotho are family doctors,” she says, explaining that a family medicine residency program was established years ago through the Lesotho-Boston Health Alliance (LeBoHA). She visited LeBoHA in 2023, the year she retired from UC Irvine after serving as chair of the Department of Family Medicine. “The people were dedicated, warm and welcoming. Their needs were great and they invited me to return,” she says. “I have been working with them remotely ever since.”

In January 2026, Haq returned to LeBoHA to review the family medicine curriculum and conduct a needs assessment for faculty and alumni for continuing professional development.

Supporting Lesotho Physicians

“Lesotho is a beautiful nation, rich in natural resources, yet it faces many challenges due to severe shortages of human, physical and financial resources,” says Haq. She learned about Lesotho while she was initiating a family medicine training program in Uganda and through collaborations with Brian Jack, MD (then department chair of family medicine at Boston University and now president of LeBoHa).

“Lesotho has a life expectancy of only 58 years due to a very high burden of diseases and limited access to health services,” says Haq. “Their family doctors must function like six doctors in one to provide services in emergency medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics, internal medicine, surgery and public health.” Nevertheless, dedicated LeBoHa physicians, staff, trainees and graduates are making progress and improving medical education and access to healthcare services.

To support their progress, Haq conducted a thorough review of the family medicine curriculum; interviewed residents, faculty and alumni; and offered recommendations, including guidance on recruiting a dean and opening their first medical school. She also:

• met with Ministry of Health leaders and directors to learn about their challenges and promote continuing professional development requirements for physicians;
• met with U.S. Embassy staff to encourage continued investments and collaborations to improve health in Lesotho;
• provided content to teach interns and residents about occupational and environmental health;
• recommended resources to enhance recruitment and retention by promoting physicians' well-being; and
• encouraged collaboration with family medicine leaders of the WONCA Africa organization and attendance at the September WONCA conference in Botswana.

In further support of well-being, Haq donated trees and flowers to beautify the LeBoHA campus. “The look and feel of a place matters,” she says. “So I met with staff from the local College of Agriculture to plan landscaping to make the campus into an oasis of healing, teaching and learning.”

Haq has agreed to serve as a mentor, consultant and collaborator on current and future projects. LeBoHa will adapt materials developed at UC Irvine for their mentoring program for early career faculty.

Committed to Global Health Equity

Haq’s interest in global health equity was first sparked at age seven, when she lived in Pakistan and witnessed the impacts of severe poverty on children. When she asked why the children didn’t have what they needed, her mother replied, “There but for the grace of God goes you.” Haq began to wonder what she might do to make a difference and was inspired by the lives of Albert Schweitzer and Jane Goodall. Her parents encouraged her to consider a career in medicine.

Haq earned her MD from Indiana University in 1983 and, within three years, started working in global health, training Village Health Workers in Uganda.

In 1990, she earned her first Fulbright award and spent a year at the Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan. She worked with John Bryant, MD, and colleagues to establish the first family medicine residency training program in the nation. This program evolved into a Department of Family Medicine and continues to train family physicians and lead research in primary health care in South Asia.

Subsequently, Haq served as a consultant to the World Health Organization and as the founding director of the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Global Health (now the Global Health Institute).

Haq received her second Fulbright award in 2005 to work at Makerere University in Uganda to help establish their Master of Medicine in Family Medicine and Community Practice program. Innocent Besigye, a resident who trained with Haq, is now head of the department and leading efforts to train family physicians across Africa.

Haq’s (late) husband and four children supported and joined many of these efforts. Her daughter, Heather Haq, MD, is a pediatrician leading global health programs for Baylor and Texas Children’s Hospital.

Haq was recruited to UC Irvine by Michael J. Stamos, MD, dean of the School of Medicine, and was attracted to the far-reaching programs and family medicine residency based in a federally qualified health center in Santa Ana. Haq continues to serve on the UC Irvine Health Equity Collaborative. “Promoting health equity is a local and worldwide goal,” she says. “Health problems in one area can quickly spread to other places. Remember the COVID pandemic?”

With more than 42 years of experience working in the U.S., Pakistan, Uganda and Ethiopia, and collaborating with a variety of partners and organizations, she is well prepared to serve as an effective consultant abroad.

“My work recruiting, training and retaining family physicians and health professionals to work in shortage areas, emphasizing health equity and social accountability in medical education, has been endlessly fascinating and immensely rewarding,” she says. “While I have seen great progress, there is much more to do when it comes to providing high-quality healthcare for all.”

If you’re interested in learning more about health equity and global health collaborations, visit the UC Irvine Department of Family Medicine, UC Global Health Institute or Lesotho Boston Health Alliance, or contact Cynthia Haq at chaq@hs.uci.edu.

— Shani Murray