January 20 - Pink Sneakers and Ultrasound Sweeps

We started the day off by visiting the Uganda Women's Cancer Support Organization's (UWOCASO) center of operation. UWOCASO is an NGO that gives psychosocial and pathway navigation support to breast cancer patients and survivors. There, we met Herbert, a volunteer at the NGO who we had met virtually a few months ago and Madame Gertrude, the founder and president of UWOCASO. One of the first things I noticed about Madame Gertrude were her hot pink sneakers that she paired with an otherwise black and white outfit. I loved the pop of color and simultaneous statement of identity and solidarity those shoes represented as Madame Gertrude is a survivor of breast cancer herself and is a strong advocate and source of support of patients with breast cancer in Uganda. She is also a farmer! She kindly shared some of the bananas from her plot with us - they were delicious.

We had a great conversation where Madame Gertrude shared her goals and vision of the organization and we shared the intent of our work. We learned of the post-mastectomy challenges faced by the women related to prostheses and inserts used with bras to give women the ability to maintain the look of a part of their body so closely tied to identify and womanhood here in Uganda. There are challenges in being able to access an affordable prosthesis that can appropriately simulate the look and weight of a breast. We gained patient-focused insights from Herbert and Madame Gertrude that were helpful for us to carry with us as we develop an innovation to serve these same women.

With Madame Getrude and Herbert at UWOCASO

From UWOCASO, we had a brief lunch before visiting the headquarters of Imaging the World (ITW) Africa. If you remember from a previous blog post: [January 13 - Lacor and Gulu Independent, challenges in private hospitals], we had the chance to speak with nurse coordinator, Sister Rose, and a couple of alumni and from the ITW training program when we were at Lacor Hospital in Gulu. At the ITW headquarters we met Renny (Project Coordinator for ITW), Allan (Information Technology lead for ITW), and their office puppy, Ace. ITW was started in 2010 by Dr. Kristen Destigter, a radiologist at the University of Vermont with a mission to increase rural access to medical imaging. Learn more about how ITW works on their WEBSITE. The focus of ITW has been on abdominal ultrasounds for use during pregnancy but learning about the organization's operational model and technical workings from Renny and Allan really helped us understand an example of a successful "medical service access" initiative. Allan shared a demo of ultrasound sweeps taken in Gulu and transmitted to radiologists abroad.

Today's takeaways:

• Patient-centric considerations for an intervention in the breast cancer care pathway

• A model we may adapt to be used for a task-shifted intervention to enable breast cytology to be performed in peripheral health centers in Uganda