Defining the Medical Imaging Requirements for a Rural Health Center

Caridad (Cari) Borrás, D.Sc., DABR, DABMP, FACR, FAAPM, FIOMP, a Spanish national, went, as a Fulbright scholar, to the USA, where she worked as a radiological physicist in Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington DC. There, she managed for 15 years the radiological health program of the Pan American Health Organization/ World Health Organization and then, for 2 years, went to Recife, Brazil, as a Visiting Professor of the Federal University of Pernambuco. She chaired for nine years the Science Committee of the International Organization for Medical Physics and, for six, co-chaired/chaired the Health Technology Task Group of the IUPESM. For her scientific, educational and professional contributions to medical physics, she has been given awards by the IUPESM, the Spanish (SEFM), American (AAPM), Latin American (ALFIM) and International (IOMP) medical physics societies, by the American Board of Radiology and by the American College of Clinical Engineering. 

Part I Medical and Public Health Needs of a Rural Health Center.- Characteristics of a rural health center.- Medical imaging needs in a rural health center from a clinical point of view.- Part II: Medical Imaging Modalities.- Medical imaging equipment characteristics at the health center level: Overview.- Technical specifications.- Ultrasound units.- X-ray units Planar Radiography.- Part III: Planning a Medical Imaging Service.- Physical infrastructure and procurement issues.- Basic training and continuing education of technical staff in rural health centers – a personal view.- Teleradiology and networking.- Part IV: Operational Considerations.- Quality control, radiation protection and maintenance programs.- Patient referral to secondary and tertiary health care.- Recommendations.- Annex.- Appendices: Practical cases.