Resources

American health care missionaries outside the US need to keep their US health care licenses current in order to practice in some countries, as well as they desire to keep abreast of the latest developments in their field. This need and desire requires a significant amount of continuing education, often 40 hours every two years, which is difficult to achieve when home in the US on a furlough. The Christian Medical Dental Association has over 30 years of annual meeting experiences providing continuing education to dentists, physicians and other health care workers through their Continuing Medical Dental Education (CMDE) Commission.

We will discuss the essential of any research project in a low-middle income country including planning a research project, seeking funding, ethical considerations and ethical approval, financial hurdles, cross-cultural challenges, evaluation of the project and publication considerations.

The most common cause for expatriate healthcare professionals to abandon their service in a mission hospital is unresolved conflict with those that they work or live with in community. This session will share proven principles and techniques to resolve conflict that inevitably comes to everyone during their lives.

Dentistry has a great opportunity to reach the least, the last and the lost for the needs are overwhelming and universal. I will use various countries to evaluate and discuss how to take advantage of different opportunities and situations that may be available. It is important for us to discuss and understand the government and the culture and what it entails to move forward on a venture into a closed or creative access country. How to work with national partners. Concerns with communication. How about a site visit. How to select a team and prepare them for such a great opportunity. Time for discussion and asking questions. Lets have some fun.

Community Health Evangelism (CHE) is a breakthrough mission strategy that seamlessly integrates evangelism and discipleship with disease prevention and community-based development. Through these ministries people become followers of Jesus, churches are planted, and entire communities are lifted out of cycles of poverty and disease.

If you are ministering in a Muslim community, it is imperative to understand the cultural implications of Islam. This session will address those implications from a speaker that grew up in those communities.

Provides a brief overview of the most common surgical problems by region. Cases will be discussed that are unique to each region, with emphasis on presentation and treatment options in resource poor environments.

This brief educational breakout session will discuss issues in dysphagia (swallowing disorders) within the acute-care setting. Common and complex dysphagia presentations will be discussed through cases across Cameroon and Kenya. Learners will be exposed to a basic swallowing screening protocol, low-resource dysphagia management and techniques to reduce aspiration pneumonia, as well as basic swallow management for complex anatomy such as cleft-lip/palate.

CARING ACROSS CULTURESDR. M. KAMALINI KUMAR PhD. RN.Practices and beliefs that center around illness, suffering, death and bereavement in patients from various ethnic backgrounds and belief systems can create many challenges for health care professionals. These beliefs also influence the way patients perceive the quality of care they receive. Research has shown that caregivers who are sensitive to the cultural and belief systems of patients can help not only to reduce their stress, but increase the compliance and satisfaction with the care they receive. Besides this obvious understanding of culture, there is the culture of the times we now live in. Which culture should we address and engage in? The traditional values of Christianity and the church or the contemporary culture of social reform, less binding commitments and sexual freedom of all kinds? We must grapple with these issues with wisdom and insight. Knowing and remembering every person's cultural practices is a virtual impossibility, but understanding human relationships and connectedness is not. This seminar will explore the simple, but profound ways in which relationship-based care crosses cultural barriers in ways that transcend any strategy or program that ensures culturally competent care. It is based on the fact that God who created diversity has a culture that supersedes all other cultures. The practice of "God's culture" is what brings unity to our diversity and power to our caring. To quote Rachel Naomi Remen "Fixing and helping create a distance between people, but we cannot serve at a distance. We can only serve that to which we are profoundly connected."The goal of this seminar is to go beyond just knowledge of a person's culture in order to care for them, but to grasp the significance of care that is delivered not with professionalism alone but with the mystery of relational and incarnational living.

Abstract: Faith-based medical ministries have substantial opportunities to improve healthcare through biomedical research. Success typically requires collaboration between national, organizational, and expert stakeholders. In this session practical aspects of developing a collaborative research program will be discussed.

The topic of leadership and conflict management is not typically taught in professional schools but it is present in both group and work environments, including the mission field. In many situations, the medical professional because of their learned status becomes the leader but they do not have the skills to take on this role. This session will provide the participants with some of the skills and understanding needed to be successful leaders in their environments of practice.