I have been selected by my radiology residency program for a one month elective rotation at the Princess Marina Hospital in Gaborone, Botswana. The first radiology residency in the country was recently founded at this hospital, with the important contribution of one of my radiology attendings at Penn, Dr. Sung Kim. In Botswana, I will be giving didactic lectures and hands-on imaging sessions for a range of modalities and topics to the residents and technologists. I will show the residents and staff how to perform basic interventional procedures with image-guidance. Furthermore, I will be providing primary interpretation of imaging studies.
The goal of this project is to contribute to the education of the trainees and staff in the Department of Radiology at the Princess Marina Hospital in Gaborone, Botswana. Ultimately, this will benefit the population of the city and surrounding areas, as many travel to Gaborone to receive their medical care. This hospital is the ideal setting as it has the necessary medical equipment to provide advanced imaging services to its patients. However, a lot of this equipment is underutilized.
This trip will contribute to the education of the trainees and staff of the department and hospital. Ideally, after the trip the framework will exist in the department to offer advanced imaging modalities with tailored imaging protocols for complex medical conditions. In addition, a goal of this trip is to decrease the amount of unnecessary surgical procedures and replace with minimally invasive image guided procedures (for example: ultrasound guided biopsies).
During my trip to Botswana, I worked in the Radiology Department of the Princess Marina Hospital, reading imaging studies from different modalities (x-rays, ultrasound and CT). I was excited to be a part of multidisciplinary hospital teams and tumor boards, participating in the care of several patients. Furthermore, I had the incredible opportunity to teach other residents, technologists and University of Botswana medical students about Radiology and IR. I would like to thank the Dox Foundation for their generous support of this project!
