For nearly 10 years now (2017-2026), through Road2IR and the RSNA Global Learning Center program; we have worked to establish Radiology Subspecialty Fellowship Training programs in Interventional Radiology, Neuroradiology and Women’s Imaging at the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS) and Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. In addition to providing overall support to all of our Fellowship training programs, I will also be a Visiting Faculty in Neuroradiology at MUHAS/MNH for two weeks.
The Fellowship training programs at MUHAS/MNH now have a total of 16 current Fellows; Interventional Radiology (6), Neuroradiology (6) and Women’s Imaging (4). Our Fellowship programs strive to provide practical training and subspecialized radiology services for patients at MNH, a 1259-bed quaternary referral hospital in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. MNH provides the highest level of medical referral care in Tanzania, and also for neighboring countries in East Africa. Our Fellows also serve neurosurgical and orthopedic patients at the Muhimbili Orthopaedic Institute (MOI) on the Muhimbili National Hospital campus.
To date, our programs have graduated a total of 28 Fellowship trained Radiologists: Interventional Radiology (16), Neuroradiology (8) and Women’s Imaging (4). All of our graduates are serving patients in their home countries, and several have joined MUHAS as Faculty supporting our Fellowship programs. This has allowed us to transition the Fellowship programs to MUHAS, with only periodic in-person visits from external Faculty who focus on Junior Faculty development and quality assurance.
Many Thanks to the Doximity Foundation travel grant, I recently served as visiting Faculty at the Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH) campus, which together with the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS), hosts our 3 Radiology subspecialty fellowship training programs in Interventional Radiology, Neuroradiology and Women’s Imaging. I attended Neurosurgery morning rounds at the Muhimbili Orthopaedic Institute, adding a neuroradiology perspective to the challenging cases being discussed and modeling the importance of multidisciplinary engagement for our Neuroradiology Fellows. After the Neurosurgery morning rounds, we would discuss challenging Neuroradiology cases and then spend time at the MRI scanner fine-tuning MRI protocols and provide feedback to the MRI technologists – something we are not able to do remotely. I also visited with our Women’s Imaging Fellowship which provides superb breast diagnostic services and training, previously not available at MNH. Lastly, I spent time with our Road2IR Interventional Radiology (IR) Fellows observing some of the challenging cases now being routinely performed in the new AngioSuite at MNH. Our Road2IR IR Fellowship class at MNH is unique with Fellows from Uganda, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia. MNH and MUHAS are truly becoming an IR training hub for the East Africa region. In the evenings, we also enjoyed the lovely hospitality of my hometown Dar es Salaam!
