About

I had an amazing team of 5 sonographers volunteer for this trip - Patrick, Alyce, Aliyah, Georgeanne and Cecilia. They spent a week at various District Hospitals continuing the echo education for the NCD nurses and physicians. As always their enthusiasm and expertise was appreciated by everyone involved.

I overlapped for a weekend with them as I was part of the surgical team working with Dr. Stephanie Saucier a cardiologist. She and I spent a few days screening for surgical patients in the Kigali area and then did the post-op studies as needed. The Team Heart surgical teams in 2022 and this year are much smaller than when we brought 40 people! This is due to the increase in knowledge of the Rwandan nurses, clinicians, support staff, etc. In fact the last day we were there Dr. Maurice did a case without any of the Team Heart volunteers in the room. This was the first instance of open heart surgery being performed by a Rwandan surgical team without the involvement of a visiting expatriate team!