For The Right Diagnosis, Know Your Community
Monday, December 28th, 2009 |
Since returning from Angola, I’ve been caring for patients at Research Medical Center, here in Kansas City. Very often, they present with fever. Here, the causes I first think of are influenza, bronchitis, and the common cold. But in Angola, I’d first be concerned about malaria, typhoid and pneumonia. Knowing what’s common in a given community […]
Isolated on Christmas Day
Friday, December 25th, 2009 |
This Christmas Day I am thinking of INMED’s faculty living and serving in some of the world’s most marginal communities: Tim Myrick (Middle East), Earl Hewett (Ghana), Steve Foster (Angola), Dennis Palmer (Cameroon), Paul Gray (Ethiopia), Jean Young (Ghana), Charlie Besley (Kenya), Victor Fredlund (South Africa), Bob Matthews (Tanzania), Rory Wilson (Uganda), John Spurrier (Zambia), […]
Inspiring Words from CURE Hospital
Saturday, December 19th, 2009 |
This morning I’m listening to NPR describe the work of CURE Hospitals. They are primarily providing orthopedic care to physically disabled children in the poorest nations. I was just about moved to tears as I reflected on the fact that INMED students are studying at one of the CURE hospitals. About the same moment, was […]
Stream Of Water-Borne Disease – Angola 2009 In Review
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 |
When I first moved to the city of Huambo in central Angola I myself developed a severe case of dysentery, as did my family. Solution? I had a well dug in my front yard – pictured here with the concert cap over the opening. None of us every became similarly ill again. Several readers have written […]
Will He See Again? – Angola Day 23
Saturday, December 12th, 2009 |
Image the pain of slowly loosing your eye sight, knowing that shortly you will be utterly dependent upon others to care for your most basic needs – pain like that experienced by the man in the photo above who is now entirely blind from cataracts. Then imagine the utter joy and elation of coming […]
Exploring the Wilderness – Angola Day 21
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 |
One of the pleasant characteristics of medical life in Angola is that the evening are generally quiet – except for the C-section Monday at 4 AM that just could not wait for daylight. Weekday afternoons are also predictably tranquil. I took a break from the Evangelical Medical Center of Lubango to go hiking and climbing in […]
Sight To The Blind – Angola Day 19
Sunday, December 6th, 2009 |
Pictured above is Steve Collins. This remarkable man began his career as a pastor in Newfoundland. As one of the few educated people in the area, Steve shortly discovered the town’s people bringing all their sick to him. So off he went to medical school. In 1991, about the time I moved to Angola, […]
Truly A Hard Life – Angola Day 17
Saturday, December 5th, 2009 |
Earlier this week I was talking with a 35-year old Angolan lady who lost her left leg to a land mine 10 years ago. Angola was once home to the highest per capita concentration of land mines in the world! Then, this lady lost 8 of her ten children to fever and diarrhea. No […]
Sacrificing For Their Own – Angola Day 15
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 |
My thoughts often turn to the men and women who serve at Kalukembe Hospital. Located about 100 miles NE of Lubango, Kalukembe is a typical, low-resource, isolated town on the Angolan savannah. There the disease of poverty are more apparent, and the medical resources are way less than at the Lubango Evangelical Medical Center. […]
Forgotten People
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 |
Typhoid fever. At this moment I’m caring for a youth with this disease in the highlands of Angola, Africa. The typhoid ruptured six holes in his intestine, and has nearly taken his life. He is of the Ovimbundu people, for whom life has not changed in hundreds of years. The women and children tend […]
