Our second POCUS training programme in Ghana

July saw us head back to Ghana to deliver our second Point of Care Ultrasound (POCUS) training programme part-sponsored by Bayer** and hosted by the University of Allied Health and Sciences in Ho.

Point of care is a phrase used for doing tests at the patient bedside rather than in a separate part of the hospital. For many settings in lower-income countries, radiology departments and complex imaging equipment are scarce and difficult to access. With Point Of Care Ultrasound it means that a portable ultrasound is available to healthcare workers to help make diagnoses and treatment decisions when other imaging tests are not available or accessible.

After a successful pilot of the POCUS programme in 2021, more participants arrived in Ho to start the first part of their hands-on training. We were joined by healthcare professionals from Ghana and our first international participant from The Gambia.

The POCUS training programme consists of pre-course learning materials delivered online through the University of Salford e-learning platform before participants even arrive for the hands-on in-person training. There are two parts of the in-person training, the first of which was in July and the second will take place in October. Participants will also be regularly supported remotely with clinical cases reviews between July and December.

It is a packed training programme designed to deliver quality assured training in topics that are most useful to patients in Ghana, such as emergency assessment of patients involved in accidents, pregnancy scans, chest ultrasound (including for COVID and Tuberculosis), kidney ultrasound and ultrasound-guided insertion of cannulas.

We were also particularly excited to be joined by some familiar faces, as three of our 2021 participants joined us as trainee trainers to become certified instructors of the future. Having them return as passionate and knowledgeable instructors just one year after their own course is a demonstration of the rapid impact of our POCUS programme.

Dr Mbroh, one of our newly trained instructors, said about his training experience, “I am excited to be a POCUS trainer for Worldwide Radiology so I can learn more and also teach other doctors, so we can do more for our patients than we are currently doing.”

We are delighted to receive such great feedback about our POCUS training programme and look forward to facilitating many more to come!

Find out more about this course or donate to help us train more medical professionals in resource-limited settings.

**“This project has been supported by a financial grant from Bayer Plc. Bayer Plc has had no involvement whatsoever in the development or implementation of the project.”