Report of Outreach Professor Jonathan M. Morris, M.D.
I would like to again say thank you, thank you,…. thank you. What a gift this trip has been to Don and myself. Our host Dr. YuriyIvaniv and Dr. Yuri AlexandravichPalamarchuk could not have been more welcoming. Dr. Ivaniv and his son Dr IhorIvaniv as well as other doctors translated our slides into the Cyrillic alphabet and we had translators for the course and at meal times (of which there were many). We could have wanted for nothing. Not only did we get to teach daily in their clinics and at the course but they opened the city for us in a way no tourist could have seen. The knowledge of their homeland and home city was a treasure I will not forget.
The participants were so eager to learn. Everywhere we went the desire to better their own medical knowledge and improve the imaging capabilities of their clinics was impressive to say the least. Since most of the world’s medical knowledge is in English there is a lot of work to be done about bringing educational material to the people of Ukraine. Not just in the form of radiology education but also for technologists and physicist which were in short supply and without formal training programs. Don and I hope to continue to help in ways that we can form our side of the world. It was a very special time to be in the country for me as the Ukrainian patriotism was inspiring.
I tried to explain things to my family back home after each day was done but most of what we experienced was a feeling of welcoming, thankfulness, and being treated like family. So again I would like to say thank you all for this outreach and your vision in putting it together but also for allowing me to participate in it.