Global Emergency Care has been teaching the use of point-of-care ultrasound to Emergency Care Practitioners (ECPs) since 2009. In the low-resource emergency departments of Uganda, bedside ultrasound is the most important diagnostic tool available to emergency practitioners.

​GEC trains ECPs to be local experts in bedside ultrasound. ECPs heavily utilize this critical technology to diagnose traumatic injuries, ectopic pregnancies, pericardial effusions, pneumonia, and a whole host of other emergent conditions. Ultrasound, without a doubt, helps ECPs be effective frontline emergency providers and save lives.

​The technology is critical for emergency care, versatile, portable, cheaper than computed tomography, more reliable and safer than X-ray, but still costly. Your support in maintaining our machines allows ECPs to make emergent diagnoses, preform safe procedures, and train the next generation of emergency practitioners in Uganda.

Thanks to a very generous gift from the Ellis family in honor of their parents, Dan and Barbara Ellis, we will be offering a 100% match on all ultrasound donations up to $10,000. Our goal is to raise $30,000 to fix one of current ultrasound machines and to purchase two new ultrasound machines.

Dan and Barbara Ellis were born in the early 1930s, during the worst of the Great Depression which influenced their views of the world.  They met and married in the 1950s after Dan had served in the Korean War.  Three children came along, and they continued to work hard, raise their children, live frugally and save money each month despite humble blue-collar salaries.  They continued their modest lifestyle into their 80s when Dan died in 2015 and Barbara in 2018 after long productive lives.

Although Dan and Barbara never visited Uganda, they would have understood difficult economic situations, working hard, and doing the best you can with what you have.  They would have appreciated the work of GEC which empowers people to care for their families and community.  In honor of their memory and legacy, a matching gift of $10,000 from the fruits of their labor and love will be donated to GEC for the purchase of ultrasound equipment which can save lives.

Every donation on this page will fund the repair of one ultrasound machine and the purchase of two new machines. Your gift will buy essential equipment critical to the education of Emergency Care Practitioners in point-of-care ultrasound.

The Heart Caught In A Bind

By: Michael A. Schick, MD, GEC Ultrasound Director
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At Masaka Hospital in Uganda our Emergency Care Practitioners (ECPs) have acquired specialized emergency training in point-of-care ultrasound. In this specific diagnostic skill set, they are the most trained practitioners in the region. While teaching our ECPs ultrasound we often take to the medical wards, where pathology is plentiful. There we also interact with the ward medical/surgical teams, and often our “practice” scans drastically change management. When we arrived on the medical ward we immediately find a young man tripodding on his hospital bed…