Better kidney care for the less fortunate
Nephrology training in a low-cost setting is more effective in understanding how to treat the poorest kidney patients in the world.
ISN Fellow Sudakshina Ghosh from Tanzania trained at the Madras Medical Mission and got involved with India’s Tanker Foundation – an organization helping the country’s poorest kidney patients.
Host mentor and Tanker Foundation Founder Georgi Abraham believes the training and experience has provided Dr. Ghosh with a platform for increasing care for kidney disease patients in her country.
He adds: “More fellows from Africa and South Asia should be encouraged to train in India. This adds value to their training by seeing and experiencing nephrology care in a low-cost setting.”
Dr. Ghosh’s gained hands-on training in Chronic Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis (CAPD), hemodialysis and renal biopsy, and learned about awareness and prevention programs at the Tanker Foundation. Finally, she was lucky to present clinical research at the World Congress of Nephrology 2015 in Cape Town, South Africa.
Ghosh believes there is a need for nephrologists in Tanzania: “I now feel able to set up a CAPD program in my region and teach junior doctors to motivate them to take up nephrology as a career.”
Ghosh’s home institution, the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center in Moshi, Tanzania, already collaborates with its sister center, Queens University, Canada. She was motivated to train in nephrology thanks to the work that both centers carry out through the Saving Young Lives (SYL) program. SYL helps set up acute Peritoneal Dialysis programs and the center in Moshi was the first center to get involved in the initiative.
So, there are definitely many opportunities to work together. With this training, Ghosh also hopes to manage and respond to posttransplant patients suffering from early graft failure.
