As part of few selected internal medicine residents selected to participate in this global health trip, I plan to go to Georgetown, Guyana to provide hands-on medical care and training to patients and providers at an underserved Public Hospital ( Georgetown Public Hospital)n in Guyana. We will be providing medical education and needed hands-on skills to local medicine residents and students. We will teach certain expertise garnered from the American Health System and use it as a model for foundation.
Point Of Care Ultrasound (POCUS) is becoming increasingly popular and useful in underserved areas with limited advanced imaging modalities. POCUS can often be used for early diagnosis and expedite patient care. We aim to teach locals much needed POCUS skills and donate a few hand-held ultrasound devices. Our goal is to provide locals with state of the art skills in using POCUS to diagnosis and treat patients in a much cost-efficient fashion.
Locals at Georgetown, Guyana and all patients who frequent Georgetown Public Hospital will benefit greatly from this project. Due to high poverty rate in Georgetown , majority of patients do not receive the best care which often leads to unwanted outcomes. The healthcare providers are also under-equipped to provide much need patient due to resource limited conditions.
There has been a consistent partnership between Guyana Public Hospital and Pittsburgh, to help mitigate some of these health care gaps. Additionally, Dr. Margaret Larkins-Pettigrew
the Senior Vice President and the Chief Clinical Officer of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for Allegheny Health Network/Highmark Health - is developing a non-profit organization with Guyana Public Hospital to combat infant-child mortality; hence why we chose to continue working with this particular population to help build and strengthen their health system.
We hope to make a huge impact in the healthcare received by the locals. The POCUS skills we will teach local providers/educators will make some healthcare cost easily affordable. POCUS skills is much needed in underserved and resource limited institutions like Georgetown Public Hospital. Our goal is to bridge the gap between healthcare in developing countries and countries like the United States.
If successfully implemented, there will be a reduction in preventable negative healthcare outcomes for this community.
I am so grateful I was able to attend this amazing trip! I was part of internal medicine team and was able to share my knowledge on guideline-directed medical therapy! I was rotated at the Cardiac ICU which was a much needed experience, as they were understaffed. I gave lectures to junior trainees in the local residency program. I gave medical student lectures and taught basic POCUS skills to students!
Such an amazing experience and looking forward to do it all over again !
