GALVESTON, Texas - A real-time, televised presentation and discussion of viral and bacterial lung infections was held Nov. 9, at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. Participating were UTMB radiology residents, students and faculty, and their counterparts at the University of Sao Paulo School of Medicine in Brazil.
The lecture by Dr. Leonard Swischuk, a UTMB professor of radiology, was the first in a series of planned collaborations between university radiologists at the two medical schools made possible by UTMB's and Sao Paulo's advanced teleconferencing infrastructure.
The new international relationship was established by Dr. Gregory Katzman, chairman of UTMB's Department of Radiology, and Dr. Giovanni Guido Cerri, chairman of radiology at the University of Sao Paulo, with facilitation by Koichi Sameshima, an associate professor at the University of Sao Paulo.
The physicians expect the project will expand over time from clinically based telecommunication for education to a range of activities including faculty and resident exchanges.
"Radiology practices are similar worldwide but our patients and pathologic processes are somewhat different," Katzman said. "Sao Paulo's Hospital da Clinicas da FMUSP with its 2,000 beds is the largest hospital in South America and last year alone radiologists there conducted more than 360,000 imaging procedures," he said.
Katzman said he expected the wide range of clinical experience to benefit to students, house staff and faculty.