Idea leads to life-saving in Tanzania

Dr. Brett Parkinson, a radiologist in charge of Intermountain Medical Center's breast care services, didn't major in math, but he knew these numbers didn't add up:

In the Salt Lake Valley, with a population of 1 million, there are 32 operating mammography machines that can detect breast cancer in its early treatable stages.

In the African nation of Tanzania, with a population of 39 million, there are zero.

Which is why Dr. Parkinson and a team of assembled health-care professionals have elected to spend their summer vacation in Tanzania.

They're leaving today for Dar es Salaam, the Tanzanian capital, where they will set up 11 mammography and ultrasound machines and instruct Tanzanian doctors and technologists how to operate the equipment and organize the country's first early detection program.

"We're not just giving them some machines," Parkinson said. "The idea is to set up a program that they will be able to maintain and operate themselves."

Dr. Parkinson will instruct Tanzanian physicians how to read mammograms, while Dianne Kane of IMC will help with the logistics of setting up an efficient screening and follow-up program. A third member of the team, Shannon McCarrel of Hologic, a women's health-care provider that is donating the mammography machines, will help technologists set up and learn how to read the machines.

Others who are part of what has become known as the East African Breast Care Project include seven Tanzanian doctors, technologists and clerks who have already visited Utah to receive preliminary instruction at the Intermountain Medical Center, executive director Doug Miller of California, and the project's founders, Wil Colom of Mississippi and James Parkinson of California.

The nonprofit, nongovernmental humanitarian project is an energizing example of one good thought leading to another.

It all started when Colom and James Parkinson, who became friends while working together as trial lawyers, visited Tanzania recently looking for business and philanthropic opportunities.

James Parkinson read an article in a Dar es Salaam newspaper about the abject lack of early breast cancer detection in the country ...

... he and Colom decided they wanted to do something about it ...

... they consulted Jim's brother, Brett, who has authored textbooks on mammography and is one of the country's most respected authorities on breast care ...