Sharla Rent, MD

Preferred pronouns: She/her

Home Institution: Duke University

Research/Fellowship/Job Site: Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre

Research Topic: Perinatal Outcomes

Sharla Rent, MD

sharla.rent@duke.edu

Bio: Dr. Rent is a Neonatologist at Duke Children’s Hospital and a master’s student at the Duke Global Health Institute. Her research interests focus on neonatal resuscitation, neonatal mortality, stillbirth, and psychosocial support for families. She will be working under the mentorship of Dr. Blandina Mmbaga, MD, PhD, and Dr. Catherine Staton, MSc, to look at negative birth outcomes in Northern Tanzania.

As junior faculty at Duke, Dr. Rent will also begin looking at bereavement preferences and practices following perinatal loss in Tanzania. She hopes to understand how grieving families can best be supported following stillbirth or neonatal death, taking into account cultural and community beliefs related to this unique type of loss. Dr. Rent completed her neonatology fellowship at the University of Michigan prior to coming to Duke, during which she explored cultural perceptions of neonatal viability in Ethiopia and Ghana. She hopes to build on themes from this work during her project in Tanzania. Dr. Rent is also engaged with a NGO, Wax and Gold, Inc., that focuses on neonatal resuscitation training in Ethiopia.

Related projects (as a collaborator)