This week I am in Glendale CA, near Los Angeles, for the in-classroom section of the INMED International Public Health Hybrid Course. International public health is one of the most inspiring of fields, for its objective is prevention disease and disability among our world’s most vulnerable people. Whenever we speak of eliminating polio, combating […]
Healthcare ideally accommodates to the needs of the people being served. In actual practice the opposite is often true. This ideal nevertheless remains a guiding precept of the Liaoning International General Health Trainers (LIGHT) of NE China. I’m enjoying the privilege of my fifth winter among them. This photo captures a LIGHT physician offering
In recent years the annual Nobel Prize in Medicine has focused on awards for high-tech applications; like development of CT imaging and mapping of the human genome. This year’s Nobel Prize shines light in a distinctly different arena: advances against some leading diseases of extreme poverty. In 1985 I first traveled to Niger
Students in the 2015 Pittsburgh PA INMED International Medicine & Public Health Course – which begins on Monday – will enjoy the privilege of being mentored by INMED’s newest faculty: Paul Larson. Qualifications for this position are rigorous, and Dr. Larson’s credits are equally laudable. Following family medicine residency and a diploma earned from
To where could a short-term international healthcare experience ultimately take you? Please consider the inspiring lives of Mark & Angie Byler. As a medical student, Mark studied hospital medicine for a few weeks in Kenya. Later, Mark and I were on faculty together at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where he met Angie and
Oh the power of parents! Once when I was about eight years old I went grocery shopping with my parents. It was a Friday afternoon, the time when we usually stocked up for our weekend trip to the Lake of the Ozarks. But unlike normal shopping trips, my parents were purchasing very unusual items:
Lubango Evangelical Medical Center was for decades only a dream in the hearts of Pastor José Abias, Dr. Stephen Foster, and leaders of the Angolan Association of Evangelicals. The vision was substantial: within Africa’s poorest nation to create a center of healthcare and compassion. In 2006, with significant backing from Franklin Graham and Samaritan’s
“I’m coughing blood again.” Moses gasped for breath, his chest muscles visibly contracting with each respiration. The starved figure of this man of twenty-six bespoke of profound malnutrition, infirmity, or both. His chest examination revealed distant, wet sounds divulging deep infection and his chest X-ray… Lacking an adequate view box, I’m here holding the
“I’m in labor, and the umbilical cord just fell out.” Utterly frightened, the mother Gilhermina approached the home of Donna Foster on a ranch here in rural Angola. Within moments, Donna and teenage daughter Meghan, loaded Gilhermina in their truck and began the 110 mile drive to us at the Evangelical Medical Center of
“My chest hurts severely and the pounding of my heart is relentless,” exclaimed a woman of forty whom I met in the emergency department. She proceeded to describe how she also felt fever and burning throughout her body, along with weakness of her legs and sensations of her head spinning. On exam, I indeed