INMED is devoted to developing the next generation of international medical volunteers. To this end, we work to maintain a close connection between ourselves and our international training sites, and to assure that our teaching stays on course with the reality of international medicine practice. To this end, INMED President Nicholas Comninellis worked alongside Steven Foster in Angola, Africa throughout the month of June, 2006.
Dr. Foster is a Canadian surgeon with SIM who has been serving in Angola since 1975. Over the last five years he has also been the point man for creating the Lubango Evangelical Medical Center, a state-of-the-art facility due to open in the near future. Foster is an INMED faculty who mentors INMED students that come to study international medicine with him.
Comninellis is no stranger to Angola either. He worked along side Foster and started a mobile clinic ministry in 1989-1991 amidst the Angolan civil war. During June, 2006, he cared for patients at Kalukembe Hospital, and polished a protocol that nurses use in caring for outpatients. Comninellis observed, “Almost daily I talk with INMED students about international health issues; the hunger, the poverty, the preventable diseases that can be cured, and the appalling deficiency of medical personnel. But how easily I forget the emotional gravity of these hurting people.”
The INMED President when on to describe two mothers who arrived one evening at the hospital seeking help for their six-month old babies, “Both babies were suffering from pneumonia and dehydration. We had a very difficult time getting IVs started, but eventually both babies were receiving intravenous fluids and antibiotics. By morning, one baby had died, while the other was recovering on her mother’s lap. The tragedy of this death once again engaged my heart in the mission which is ours: to raise awareness, motivate and equip health professionals, and to ultimately show the compassion of the Great Physician toward these people who are most in need.”