So, what are the odds of an American specialist radiologist giving up
10 days of practice and family to come to the 'far West' of Tanzania to
teach ultrasound? Not likely...but hey, you don't know how God works.
In August, I put a request in through Baptist Medical Dental Fellowship
(www.bmdf.org) for help in teaching us how to use our 1997 ultrasound
machine. That month, it just so happened that Dr. Justin was attending a
medical missions meeting in Texas (he's from Mississippi) and heard of
our request. He notified BMDF of his desire to talk with us. We began
emailing and he and his family decided that his coming to Kigoma
Tanzania was part of their ministry.
January
23rd he arrived in Kigoma (5 flights from home) and began teaching.
For 5 days he did as many kinds of ultrasound studies as possible on a
variety of patients (kids, teens, middle aged, elderly, pregnant, etc.)
In the months leading up to his arrival we had prepared a list of
patients needing an ultrasound scan done by him, and also as a way to
check my scanning abilities and interpretation. We have a very busy Out
Patient Department (OPD) and so had plenty of other patients to
ultrasound. It was days of hard work as the machine at the government
referral hospital is broken and patients were coming for scans.
Our
machine is old but still works. Justin showed us how to use it to the
best of it's capabilities, and our various abilities. I had been
self-teaching for several months and had learned some, but having Justin
with us was amazing! He's a great teacher, very patient, and loves to
serve God through his skills and compassionate care for the sick.
We
had 5 days together starting with morning coffee, a quick check
on the ward before heading to chapel, staff meeting and then a FULL day
of ultrasound. The first three days Justin spent teaching our other
staff. The last two days I did 'immersion' training. Justin had me
doing scans with various probes, checking my techniques, correcting bad
habits, and helping me to properly interpret what I was seeing. I have
to say it was challenging but fun! Having this capability really helps
us as we have very limited laboratory capabilities right now to help in
diagnosis. Of course, 75-80% of a diagnosis comes from the history, and
then more from the physical examination of the patient, and then
finally lab and X-ray and other tests help to confirm the diagnosis.
Besides teaching ultrasound, Justin also shared a bit of his
personal life story as to why he had come to Kigoma, his love for God
and his desire to follow the example of Jesus Christ in preaching and
healing. I had the opportunity to be his Swahili translator when he
spoke in chapel, a first for me. The staff appreciated his teaching,
and especially his story of why he came and how he loves God.
I'm excited to continue to learn more of ultrasound. I
will be doing a one day ultrasound training course this next week as
part of the Christian Medical Dental Assocation meeting here in Kenya. I
am searching out options to do more training when we are back in the
USA later this year. One deficiency of our machine is that we don't have
a probe to do cardiac ultrasound. I am trying to find one through
sources in the USA so we can have the capability to do cardiac
ultrasound as there is a lot of heart disease in our Area. Hopefully
one day we'll have a newer ultrasound machine but for now, we use what
we have.
Sally and I are so thankful that Dr. Justin could come and help.
We are excited about future collaboration. Thank you Dr. Justin!
Daily by His grace...
