Spending a year at the Uganda Cancer Institute in Kampala
Written by Dr Marta Ferraresso, Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Pathology at the University of Cambridge.
Collaboration is the first word that comes up to my mind when I think about my experience in Uganda. This word summaries my entire year there, not only for the collaborative grant that we won between Dr Suzanne Turners’ lab in Cambridge, and Dr Jackson Orem at the Uganda Cancer Institute (UCI) in Kampala, but, most importantly, for the feeling that I still carry with me.
I arrived in Uganda on the 1st of February 2019 and my first shock was to see this never-ending expanse of green everywhere I looked. I quickly understood why Uganda is called ‘the Pearl of Africa’!! My first few weeks at the UCI had been very hectic. Trying to orientate myself in another country and in a completely different environment. In these first few weeks I was following Sylvester around everywhere, now my dearest friend. Working with him has been so eye-opening. The most interesting thing was to learn how we were working differently in a lot of aspects. The first thing was purely communication. Coming from Cambridge, where most of the people communicate through emails, even if they are next to each other, I learned that everything there was done through real communication, which means talking to each other either via phone or in person. On my first day, I already had the mobile number of all the people involved in the project. This way helped me so much to get to know each other better and especially to trust each other on a work level and on a personal level.
Sylivestor Kadhumbula, Medical Laboratory Scientist at the UCI and Dr Nixon Niyonzima, Head of Research at the UCI, showed me how they work and how to overcome difficulties, sometimes due to lack of resources, always with a smile and by helping each other. During this year, me and the laboratory team have also started a weekly journal club which now has been taken ahead from Barbra, an amazing woman and excellent scientist in Dr. Nixon’s team!
Throughout my year no-one ever stepped back in helping with any obstacles we were encountering in our path. Also, in my time there I was invited to attend several meetings such as the Children Cancer Board meeting where different specialists joined to help in the decision process on the treatment of different children with cancer. Through these meetings I got to know several doctors, including Dr. Joyce, the head of the pediatric unit. By talking to her we realized that at UCI there was an important thing that was missing for the children. They didn’t have anything to do while they were there and no one to distract them in their life at the hospital. We decided to start a project and hire a play-therapist that would help them and their families throughout their treatment. Myself and a group of my friends repainted a room next to the children’s ward to make a space for them to be able to play. I visited the Ambrosoli school in Kampala which kindly donated many books and toys and we also got several private donations to start our project. I was able to collect enough money to guarantee a stipend for a teacher for 1 year with the hope that sustainable funding will be forthcoming after showing the importance and the benefit of this project.
In this year, we had been able to achieve many things through mutual trust and respect. In July 2020, we finally opened the molecular lab where Sylvester is directing the study and enrolling the patients and a play-therapist teacher has been selected to start working with us at the children’s ward. Since I returned to Cambridge in September, I have been in regular contact with my friends and colleagues at UCI where the work is ongoing and they have been able to recruit the first seven patients for our project. I really hope that I will be able to return to Uganda in 2021, and I can’t wait to work with them again!
See our Uganda Cancer Institute (UCI) – Cambridge Collaboration pages for more information about our Initiative. Contact Polly Basak, Project Coordinator on the UCI-Cambridge Initiative if you’d like to be involved in our group pab92@cam.ac.uk