The first-ever Women's Imaging Training Program has been launched in the continent of Africa and in the city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Specifically, I'll be rotating through three (3) different hospitals in Dar es Salaam, Ocean Road Cancer Center, Muhimbili National Hospital, and Mlonganzila hospital. I will be assisting the new trainees on how to log patient cases in redcap in order to build a formal radiology-pathology program and a plan for follow-up of patients
524 women die per 100,000 live births due to pregnancy-related causes in Tanzania. In addition, breast cancer is the second leading cause of mortality, among women in Tanzania. This project aims to serve the women of Tanzania by equipping their novel imaging specialists with tools to provide high-quality and effective care
As an early career women's imager/radiologist and the outgoing American College of Radiology (ACR 2021-2022) imaging informatics fellow who also had ties to the African continent, my passion is to build on expanding access to imaging informatics on the continent. One of the greatest challenges I faced in achieving my goals during my informatics fellowship was access to data. This project would be the first of its kind in mining data for breast cancer and additional factors contributing to the morbidity of women in Africa, with Tanzania being the pilot site.
In January 2021, the RSNA established a Global learning center established at the Muhumbili National Hospital in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. An interventional radiology and neuroradiology fellowships have already been ongoing in the hospital with a women’s imaging fellowship recently launched.
Prior to the establishment of the women’s imaging fellowship, breast imaging procedures had been performed by IR with approximately 30 biopsies performed over the past two years.
I had the opportunity to engage with the 3 founding fellows, Dr. Irene Mhalu-Moshi, Dr. Angaline Bernard Kalinga, and Dr. Mwajuma Jumbe-Bibie, in optimizing the acquisition of breast ultrasound images and performing breast procedures. The primary objective of my trip was to assist with the creation of a redcap database for breast imaging. There is RedCap available at the institution that has been solely created for interventional radiology. I adapted and optimized the data to be included in the database that would be specific to breast imaging. These included requisition forms for breast imaging, breast procedures, and referral information.
The next steps would be optimizing the redcap database and training the fellows on the process of Additionally, in the process of building the questionnaires for the database and managing patients, clinical workflow challenges were determined. Specifically, the process of handling/transferring specimens from radiology to pathology, amongst other factors. These workflow challenges would be concurrently addressed while optimizing the database.
