P.O.C.U.S, though nothing short from magic, is not a spell, it stands for Point-Of-Care Ultrasound. It means that a clinician other than a radiologist uses an ultrasound at bedside to help him come up with a diagnosis, make important clinical decisions or perform invasive procedures more safely.
Ultrasound machines are reliable, relatively cheap and can be small enough to be carried in a pocket. They have the potential to greatly improve care in low- and middle-income countries. However many hospitals in sub-saharan Africa do not have enough ultrasound machines or do not have access to training that would justify investing in those machines.
Our project is to help Gondar University Hospital in Northern Ethiopia implement POCUS within its hospital and incorporate it to its medical training program. This is a joint project between Gondar University, McGill University, Hadassah-Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Ben Gurion University of the Negev.
The goal of our fundraising campaign is to provide Gondar University Hospital with three ultrasound machines and jointly develop a POCUS curriculum to allow them to teach their residents how to use these practice changing machines.