Sometimes, changing lives starts with a single connection across continents. That's precisely what happened when Albert Ruenes, Jr., MD, a urologist from Penn Medicine Doylestown Health, teamed up with Serigne Gueye, MD, a urologist from Dakar, Senegal.
They partnered to tackle a serious problem: prostate cancer, which is especially aggressive and deadly across Africa, where risk factors are higher due to genetics and limited access to preventive care and treatment.
The journey begins
Gueye, a Fulbright scholar and professor at Hospital General de Idrissa Pouye, was in the United States focusing on the genetics and treatment of prostate cancer at the University of Pennsylvania.
Gueye visited Doylestown Hospital in 2002 to explore how urologic care is delivered in a community setting. On his first day, he observed Ruenes performing a minimally invasive prostate surgery called radical perineal prostatectomy.
Inspired by the potential benefit of this cost-effective procedure to prostate cancer patients in his home country, Gueye encouraged Ruenes to bring this knowledge to Senegal.
