Resources

Moved by our compassion and the example of Christ to care for vulnerable and marginalized people suffering the ravages of disease, our response is often to build a clinic and send doctors and nurses to provide care. However, that assumes that if we build the clinic, people will come and if they come, they and their families will get healthy and stay healthy. Together we will explore the meaning of “health”, what is Community-Based Primary Health Care, and learn about three methodologies for prevention and cure at the community level..

Contemporary criticism by global health experts of much of short term medical missions activity (Dead Aid, When Helping Hurts) is valid. We have a tendency to justify use of US diagnostic and treatment guidelines in low income countries as equitable while demonstrably unreasonable and harmful. Careful consideration of the whole care process from care access to care follow-up including all costs including harms and benefits coupled with compassion leads to cost-effective, patient-centric care

1.2 million young children die each year due to acute respiratory infection. Careful attention to appropriate diagnosis, evidenced-based management, and preventive strategies can help prevent these unnecessary and tragic deaths.

Pregnant women and children are at particular risk of malaria in endemic areas, and all non-immune visitors to these areas risk severe disease and death. This session will review the epidemiology, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of malaria with special focus on pregnant women, children, and travelers.

Despite declining HIV prevalence and AIDS death rate in many countries, HIV/AIDS remains a tremendous challenge with medical, emotional, economic and social problems. Using case presentations and an interactive format, this workshop will explore HIV/AIDS care and treatment issues particularly from the speaker’s experience in Africa

many of the consequences of human trafficking have health ramifications, both physical and mental. It is important to be aware of these to help in identification of victims and to meet their health needs

This session will give a general overview of the topic of human trafficking specifically designed for healthcare professionals. It will cover both domestic and international trafficking as well as sex and labor trafficking. The session will also discuss general identifiers of human trafficking, as well as how to prepare to respond to victims of human trafficking in the healthcare setting.

This session will look at antibiotics appropriate for treatment of dental infections and for antibiotic prophylaxis as well as discussing antibiotic misuse and increasing drug resistance.

Oral Surgery can be particularly challenging on the mission field. In addition to dealing with communication and language difficulties, there are cross-cultural issues and often the lack of x-rays, proper lighting, poor suction, the lack of a trained assistant and possibly the lack of some necessary equipment. Some teams have no dentist on board and many dentists do only limited oral surgery in their practices. How can we be prepared and what are some of the techniques that we can use that might be of help as we care for those who often have never seen a dentist before and are in pain or have been in pain. Releiving pain and infection and doing no harm is only one of the pressing issues when we are out of our comfort zone working in a small dark area where we could be injured and where the incidence of HIV may be quite high.

This session will focus on the medications used to treat malaria. Most of the discussion will be focused on malaria treatment outside of the US, but time will also be spent to compare the global treatment of malaria to the treatment of malaria "imported" into the US. The session will end with a look at medications currently undergoing investigation for the treatment of malaria in the future.

Mental Health challenges are among those that bear the greatest burden of disease and disability in every country evaluated. Special challenges of diagnosing and caring for people suffering from mental health challenges in Africa will be addressed.

While embarking on a general surgical career as a worker in Africa, I found the breadth of surgical need far beyond my narrow thinking. General surgery gave way to gynecolgy, plastic surgery, orthopedics, urology, and ultimately neurosurgery as pertaining primarily to children with hydrocephalus and spina bifida. The rehab surgery has endured as my focus for the last thirty years. It has been a journey where there are few surgeons involved and where the huge needs seem to have opened a wonderful spiritual path.