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In November 2024, a group of Radiology Partners (RP) radiologists, technologists and support teammates organized an international service trip to Ghana, Africa.

Like the recent medical mission trip to Guyana, South America, this trip demonstrates RP’s ongoing commitment to living our core value of service. Through a partnership with RAD-AID International, a clinical team of two radiologists and four technologists provided clinical support to two teaching hospitals in Accra, Ghana, and a group of 11 support teammates helped make much-needed updates to a school providing access to education for students in a remote part of Ghana. RAD-AID, which supports medical volunteer opportunities, helped connect RP with the school to give non-clinical RP teammates the opportunity to serve the community.

Providing Clinical Support

In partnership with RAD-AID, two RP radiologists and four technologists provided clinical support to Korle Bu Teaching Hospital and 37 Military Hospital in the capital city of Accra, Ghana. RAD-AID Ghana has been working in Ghana since 2012. Read more about RAD-AID Ghana’s work to reach medically underserved populations and communities in Ghana.

The team, led by Dr. Arthy Saravanan, associate chief medical officer for recruitment, provided valuable support to both hospitals but spent more time at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, the second largest hospital in Africa, which serves patients from neighboring countries that don’t have facilities in their home country.

“I spent one day doing biopsies on patients, and the fellow I was working with was incredibly smart and wanted to learn to do what she was there to do but unfortunately did not have much experience or exposure to doing biopsies,” said Dr. Saravanan, a breast imaging radiologist at ARA Diagnostic Imaging. “So that’s a huge opportunity for us to make a difference.”

Dr. Saravanan, along with Chad Carlson, R.T.(R)(MR)(ARRT), MRI Technologist at Jefferson Radiology, also helped the hospital develop a new breast imaging protocol. “The Korle Bu Teaching Hospital has a breast MR coil, but they don’t have a breast MR protocol, so the technologist and the radiologist there don’t know what sequences to do,” Dr. Saravanan explained. “We were able to create a brand-new breast imaging protocol for them, and they were so excited to have it. We actually scanned our first patient with the new protocol and were able to see some of the images and the quality. We decreased imaging time for them by half and increased the efficiency. It was wonderful, and they were just so thankful.”

The team of radiologists and technologists who provided clinical support during RP’s service trip include (From left) Chad Carlson, Wendy Cirigliano, Dr. Arthy Saravanan, Dr. Philip Granchi, Roxanne Voglezon and Lindsay Dobitsky.

The four technologists spent time with the technologists at both hospitals, providing feedback and recommendations on positioning adjustments and how to get the best images. “We were able to show how with a different type of positioning you can get more breast tissue and what to do if you are getting folds,” said Roxanne Voglezon, R.T.(R)(M)(ARRT), mammography technologist at ARA Diagnostic Imaging. “’They were ‘oohing’ and ‘ahhing’ – they needed that.”

Lindsay Dobitsky, mammography technologist at Jefferson Radiology, was able to show that sometimes additional images are needed with mammograms. “When we started, they were just taking one picture and having big folds, and by the end of the week, they were doing those two extra pictures without us having to recommend doing another picture. They knew that to get the best images, we need to do another one.”

Wendy Cirigliano (ARDVMS)(RVT), a sonographer at Middle Tennessee Imaging, also worked with the radiology residents. “One of the residents asked me if I could come in, because he couldn’t make out the scan,” she said. “He thought what he was looking at was all gallbladder because it just wasn’t normal. I showed him how it was a normal gallbladder, but it was the patient’s bile duct. This little boy’s bile duct was 30mm. We were still trying to figure out why it was so dilated, and I said, ‘Let’s go ask Dr. Phil (Granchi).’ The resident looked at me, and his eyes just bulged out that he could get the doctor to come in and work through a diagnosis.”

Dr. Granchi, diagnostic radiologist for RP’s SEAL Team, stressed the importance of giving back. “I learned there are probably fewer than 100 radiologists in the entire country of Ghana, so the ability to teach in real time was rarely available to them – and we provided that,” Dr. Granchi said. “Radiology Partners is now probably the world’s largest repository of experience and radiology expertise in the world. That is a gift that we have; it is internal wealth we have that we must share with the world, because it’s the right thing to do.”

“A Deep Dive into Our Core Values”

A team of RP support teammates traveled to Ghana to help make updates to a school in the town of Akwamufie, Ghana. Dr. Kwasi Armah, a neuroradiologist in Pennsylvania and the director of RAD-AID Ghana, connected the RP to the school – the same school Dr. Armah attended as a child.

Initially, the team was invited to paint the exterior of the school, which consisted of five school buildings. The team quickly got to work, with the goal of completing all five buildings. “We had a wonderful painter on site with us from Ghana,” said Rina Mefaj, associate director of revenue cycle management (RCM) analytics. “The culture of everyone coming together and figuring it out day by day is what made the project so beautiful, and it ran so smoothly because we were so willing to help each other out.”

During the painting project, the children at the school were interested in the RP team and wanted to assist with the project, too. “When we were telling them, ‘No, we’re here to do this for you,’ one child said to us, ‘We’d like to do this as well, because we have such pride in where we learn that we want to do this.’ And that just shifted our mindset,” said DJ Snider, license specialist II with RP’s licensing & credentialing team.

Another project came to fruition before the RP team left for Ghana. During a pre-trip presentation, the team in Ghana showed a slide show of the school and mentioned they had a computer lab, which they wanted to update. “It was quickly recognized that this could be a great value add, in addition to our job of painting,” said Scott Kozel, workflow design lead. The RP team found laptops that were going to be recycled and refurbished them, and they purchased a printer, projector and cabling needed to set up a full computer lab for the school. Reid Schaefer, senior solutions manager, said there was some creative problem-solving involved in making everything work. “We were not in our normal environment, and there was never a moment of, ‘we’re not going to be able to do this.’ Our teammates were able to come together and figure out the best solution with the resources we had.” The team was humbled when they realized the children were using computers with sound for the first time. “It was a complete shock to them that this game had sound,” Kozel added. “There was such a fantastic sense of joy of bringing these computers and setting up this computer lab for these students.”

The support teammates who traveled to Ghana for RP’s service trip include (Front row, from left) Karen Vineyard, LaLicia Rackley, Kelly Shannon, Dot Stanton, Rina Mefaj, Jessica Sims and Caroline Thornton; and (Back row from left) Jamie Larsen, Scott Kozel, Reid Schaefer and DJ Snider.

The team also had the opportunity to meet the Queen Mother and King of Akwamufie, who came to visit the school to see the RP team’s work. “That was exciting for the kids,” said Caroline Thornton, credentialing manager, credentialing, licensing and privileging. “The school planned a whole program around the king’s visit to celebrate what we had done throughout the week.”

The school and community in Akwamufie were overjoyed with the work completed by the RP team – but the community also made a huge impact on the RP team. “These children gave us more than we could ever give them,” said Dot Stanton, director of revenue cycle management quality.

“One of the things that has been so special about this trip was this idea of being able to embed us into the village,” said Jamie Larsen, CFO and executive sponsor of the service trip. “I am incredibly grateful for the hosts and people who embraced us with open arms. They’ve said thank you to us probably a thousand times, but we’ve tried to say thank you to them 2,000 times, because what they did for us was just so incredibly amazing,”

Jessica Sims, associate vice president of IT business systems, agreed. “It wasn’t just a service trip; it was really a deep dive into all of our core values.”

Learn more about RP’s collaboration with RAD-AID International, including the 2024 service trip to Guyana, South America, 2023 service trip to Zanzibar, Tanzania, and RP and RAD-AID’s global health partnership formed in 2020. See more Rad Reach features, including Dr. Heather Tauschek’s efforts in Alaska and Dr. Arlene Richardson’s service with RAD-AID Tanzania.

Radiology Partners, through its owned and affiliated practices, is a leading physician-led and physician-owned radiology practice in the U.S. Learn more about our mission, values and practice principles at RadPartners.com. For the latest news from RP, follow along on our blog and on XLinkedInInstagram and YouTube. Interested in learning about career opportunities? Visit our careers page

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