This April, Prof Saeed Ahmed, Chair of our UK Diagnostic Interventional Nephrology Special Interest Group and Consultant Nephrologist at South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust in the UK, visited Pakistan to run a point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) basics course.

The course, endorsed by the UK Kidney Association, was delivered at Bahria Town International Hospital (BTIH) in Lahore and included Pakistan’s first hands-on four-day workshop with a focus on point-of-care ultrasound.

This workshop followed online lectures delivered by Prof Ahmed that had been presented over the past five months. Sixty delegates benefitted from the hands-on training, including radiologists, IT technicians, ICU trainees and anaesthesia consultants.

Support from the International Society of Nephrology’s EA Program had also been requested to train consultants in Interventional Nephrology technology as a vital and cost-effective way to improve diagnosis and treatment and enhance patient outcomes. Involvement from a number of global kidney associations meant that local expertise could be developed to become a training centre for POCUS - improving kidney services and patient safety in a sustainable way.

Prof Ahmed remains in close communication with the kidney care team in Pakistan providing ongoing feedback and mentorship.

The centre plans to hold regular POCUS workshops and launch a task force, “Pakistan Diagnostic Interventional Nephrology,” led by Prof Ahmed and his team. These initiatives aim to train the next generation of nephrologists in POCUS techniques. Plans are underway to extend workshops to other cities locally.