IR Training Program at Mulago National Referral Hospital, Uganda
Dr. Raj Dhangana, an IR attending in our department, and Dr. Suraj Parikh, one of our chief residents, recently returned from a week-long trip to Uganda where they worked with the multi-institutional ROAD2IR initiative to help develop a self-sustaining interventional radiology (IR) training program at Mulago National Referral Hospital, the country’s only tertiary care hospital.
Uganda is a country of over 45 million people whose entire population unfortunately has not had access to basic image-guided minimally invasive interventions including biopsies, nephrostomy and biliary drains, and embolizations. This ROAD2IR initiative seeks to provide patients access to vital percutaneous procedures by training physicians in their respective countries to perform them.
Dr. Dhangana served as teaching faculty for the country’s first three fellows mentoring them on ultrasound and CT guided procedures, while also providing didactic education through case presentations and lectures.
Similarly, Dr. Parikh served as a mentor to their fellows, while also delivering lectures on the management of hepatocellular carcinoma and portal hypertension, conditions that UPMC is world-renowned in treating.
In addition, our doctors utilized their research expertise to help Mulago IR prepare a database for all the procedures and clinic visits they performed since inception. As a nascent service line in their country, it was important for the fellows at Mulago IR to demonstrate their value and growth to their department, hospital, and larger IR community from which they received grant funding. During our physicians’ time in Uganda, the IR fellows at Mulago used this streamlined database to present their metrics to the hospital and an international grant committee.
We’re thrilled our physicians could bring the clinical excellence that UPMC Radiology is known for to Uganda, and we hope to continue building this international relationship!
A special thanks to Dr. Carl Fuhrman and the Fuhrman fund for giving Dr. Parikh the opportunity to participate in this endeavor.
Uganda is a country of over 45 million people whose entire population unfortunately has not had access to basic image-guided minimally invasive interventions including biopsies, nephrostomy and biliary drains, and embolizations. This ROAD2IR initiative seeks to provide patients access to vital percutaneous procedures by training physicians in their respective countries to perform them.
Dr. Dhangana served as teaching faculty for the country’s first three fellows mentoring them on ultrasound and CT guided procedures, while also providing didactic education through case presentations and lectures.
Similarly, Dr. Parikh served as a mentor to their fellows, while also delivering lectures on the management of hepatocellular carcinoma and portal hypertension, conditions that UPMC is world-renowned in treating.
In addition, our doctors utilized their research expertise to help Mulago IR prepare a database for all the procedures and clinic visits they performed since inception. As a nascent service line in their country, it was important for the fellows at Mulago IR to demonstrate their value and growth to their department, hospital, and larger IR community from which they received grant funding. During our physicians’ time in Uganda, the IR fellows at Mulago used this streamlined database to present their metrics to the hospital and an international grant committee.
We’re thrilled our physicians could bring the clinical excellence that UPMC Radiology is known for to Uganda, and we hope to continue building this international relationship!
A special thanks to Dr. Carl Fuhrman and the Fuhrman fund for giving Dr. Parikh the opportunity to participate in this endeavor.
