The East Africa Medical Assistance Foundation is a Minnesota 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting and enhancing radiology services at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center (KCMC), a 500-bed teaching hospital at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro, and is the site of the first radiology residency in the country. Through donations, the foundation provides monetary support to the radiology department, provides imaging equipment to the department, and manages a volunteer program for radiologists who wish to contribute by teaching at the Kilimanjaro School of Radiology, which has graduated over 70 trained residents throughout Tanzania. These activities are supported by donations to the foundation.

The challenge that Helmut Diefenthal, M.D., Ph.D., from the Kiliminjaro Christian Medical Center in Moshi, Tanzania, posed to ACR was not an easy one. Expanding the College's international outreach efforts would require resources, time, and careful planning. Thankfully, these obstacles didn't prevent Diefenthal from issuing a call to action when accepting his honorary ACR fellowship in 2003. In the past seven years, his words have inspired many of the College's members to give back to radiology facilities abroad.

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Download the PowerPoint presentaion Radiology in Tanzania,by Michael T. Nelson, M.D. Professor of Radiology University of Minnesota

A Life of Service
Helmut Diefenthal, M.D., set out to be of service. Along the way, he brought radiology to a nation.
By Carmen Peota, Minnesota Medicine

On October 7, 85-year-old Helmut Diefenthal, M.D., and his wife, Rotraut, closed up their cozy south Minneapolis home and boarded a plane bound for Tanzania. It’s a routine the couple has been performing for the past two decades since Diefenthal retired from teaching and practicing radiology at the University of Minnesota and Veterans Affairs Medical Center. That these octogenarians will spend the next 10 months working full time at a hospital on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro is remarkable. That in their retirement years they have brought radiology to Tanzania is even more so.

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