First Person: IR-I Resident Justin Hendrix, MD, MPH
As an Interventional Radiology trainee and global health advocate, I am honored to have received the 2026 Global Outreach Travel Award from the Emory University School of Medicine. This $2,500 grant supports Emory residents participating in international clinical rotations by helping offset travel, accommodation, and living expenses while advancing clinical training abroad.
Building on Emory’s longstanding collaboration with Road2IR, I was offered a three-week opportunity in Kigali, Rwanda. This allowed me to strengthen relationships with the local IR team, conduct an interventional radiology readiness assessment, and support development of a formal curriculum tailored to locally identified needs, all with the goal of helping grow the emerging IR Fellowship program in Rwanda.
The experiences I had in Rwanda as a result of this award further strengthen my commitment to building lasting partnerships that reflect Emory’s mission and values. My goal is to help establish a sustainable pipeline of radiology trainees who can collaborate with international IR teams in a way that supports community-centered partnership, improves population health, and expands access to high-quality care.
Justin Hendrix is a fourth-year resident in the Inerventional Radiology - Integrated Residency program. He earned his medical degree from Indiana University School of Medicine and an MPH degree with a specialization in health systems management and policy from the University of Memphis.
The Road to Rwanda
Dr. Hendrix traveled to Rwanda with faculty mentor Junman Kim, MD, in support of the country's new Interventional Radiology Fellowship program. Dr. Kim, an assistant professor in Emory's Division of Interventional Radiology and Image-Guided Medicine, and other Emory IR faculty, including J. David Prologo, MD, FSIR, professor and Interventional Radiology and Image-Guided Medicine Division Director, collaborated closely with the Rwanda Ministry of Health, the University of Rwanda, King Faisal Hospital Rwanda and Rwanda Military Hospital to establish the two-year fellowship program with help from the Road2IR Foundation and the Road2IR Board of Directors.
"The program is centered on providing outstanding training, mentorship and long-term capacity building," says Emory Radiology professor Janice Newsome, MD, FSIR, a founding board member of Road2IR and co-developer of the Rwanda fellowship program. "This has truly been a shared effort, built on trust and mutual respect."
During their three-week stay in Rwanda, Drs. Kim and Hendrix provided hands-on clinical care and embedded teaching alongside Rwanda faculty including Dr Abdullah Alsayed, an attending interventional radiologist and program collaborator.
The Rwanda IR fellows, Dr. Mbanabugabo Jean de Dieu and Dr. Duhoranenayo Dieudonne, train at King Faisal Hospital and Rwanda Medical Center. They benefit from learning from and learning alongside Emory's residents like Dr. Hendrix.
"This is what sustainable global health looks like: showing up, teaching side by side, and building systems that last," says Dr. Newsome.
The program builds on the training model Road2IR has implemented in Tanzania, where Road2IR helped develop an interventional radiology residency program. Faculty and trainees from other universities like Emory traveled to Tanzania for co-learning and co-training and, until last year, also welcomed the Tanzanian faculty to their campuses for additional training opportunities.
Proving the model's effectiveness at building local capacity, several of the Tanzanian IR residency program's graduates now serve as the program's faculty members. Having achieved this level of self-sufficiency, the program can focus all its efforts on training interventional radiologists to serve in hospitals across Tanzania. That's the goal for Rwanda.
The work requires investments of time, of people, and of equipment and technology to succeed. Beyond the dozens of universities who share the responsiblity for teaching, companies like Doximity and Siemens Healthineers, as well as organizations like Road2IR and the Radiological Society of North America's Global Learning Center provide support, too.
"Success comes from collaboration and with an eye toward sustainability," says Frank Minja, MD, professor and vice chair of global health for Emory Radiology, as well as a founding board member of Road2IR. "You know the phrase 'it takes a village'? In global health, it really does. And everyone benefits."