Thursday, June 14, 2012
Friday, June 1, 2012
Our Purpose for Service
In just a few short weeks, an IVUmed volunteer team will be heading to Kampala, Uganda to conduct a female urology workshop. IVUmed workshops give our volunteer urologists the opportunity to change the lives of their host colleagues and their patients. The local doctors will gain essential surgical skills through training and educational models developed by IVUmed and its volunteers, who maintain professional contact throughout the year to continue the learning process. Our international partners can then use their new capacity to help patients in their community, even after the volunteers have left.
This is a monumental event for our partner physicians, as well as patients like Veronica Nandego, shown above. Veronica Nandego mentions, "I have urinated on myself for 50 years." Not only has she suffered countless years of public humiliation but has lost three children, lost ability to bear children and no longer presents proper urinary function. Veronica's story is very common across Africa due to lack of capable physicians to perform the proper surgeries to deter maternal issues from becoming this severe.
IVUmed was contacted by local medical professionals in Uganda in hopes of coordinating for the upcoming workshop. We have had the opportunity to arrange travel arrangements for Veronica to reach Mulago Hospital, where the workshop will be hosted, approximately 45 kilometers away from her one-room hut in Bugembe.
Working with IVUmed's volunteer physicians will better equip the local doctors with the skills they need to help many African women like Veronica return to society and live a normal life.
IVUmed's motto, Teach One, Reach Many, guides our continuing successes in improving the quality of life for individuals worldwide through building the confidence and skill sets of local medical professionals.
To read more about Veronica's story and personal life, continue to this article.
Map of Uganda from Jinja district, where Veronica lives, to Mulago Hospital in Uganda.
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