international work?

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mattie113

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Does anyone know of radiologists that perform volunteer international medical work? What kind of projects would they take on? I would think that since funds are the limiting factor maybe U/S would be the most practical and useful. In that case would they just donate equipment or have the chance to teach local clinicians on how to use imaging? I had sort of nievely assumed that large centers donate older equipment or send docs who then can help develop imaging in places of greater need but my search has so far come up empty. Anyone?

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Doctors Without Borders (MSF) regularly sends out emergency surgery teams, which would include a radiologist. It's usually fairly short engagements. As far as the equipment issue, I have no clue, but would assume that anything found or brought along would be fairly vintage.
 
The problem is not to get equipment to places. The problem is getting local engineers trained in fixing the darn thing with little more than electrical tape and a swiss-army knife. If something brakes down and you are in Chad, GE is not going to send a service tech out there, and if they did it would easily exceed the expense for moving the used equipment there in the first place.

Some people have worked on getting ultrasound and CT to a number of central african countries but gave up frustrated after a while. Getting the equipment was the easy part. But after a brief period, all the techs they had trained to maintain it defected to South Africa to earn some real money.
 
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