What components are necessary to promote health in a low-resource setting? Money, drugs, vaccines, facilities often come to mind. But in my experience the most vital but elusive of them all is passionate and prepared personnel – the people who bring actual life to lofty intentions. Here let me introduce Sam Fabiano. He’s an […]
This nine-year young girl was born with congenital cataracts and entirely blind only until this year. That’s when her mother brought the girl to Boa Vista – the eye hospital on the Angolan coastal city of Benguela. John Clements, a fellowship trained American ophthalmologist is pictured her beside her. He operated on the first
This child presented several months ago with weakness of his legs, incontinence, and imbalance. Steve Foster recognized these classical signs of a cerebellar brain lesion. Here in this city – for a very high price – the family acquired a CT of their boy’s head that indeed revealed a brain tumor and hydrocephalus. Under
“Maybe it’s time I pursue the career I dreamed of…” Tim Kubacki was once director of a hospital emergency department in the United States. Now he’s the sole physician for some one hundred thousand people in Angola, the lowest income nation in Africa from where I am writing today. I met Dr. Kubacki two
Would you like to come join us? The personnel needs are ubiquitous, both for those with particular healthcare qualifications and for others with skills in administration. But regardless of your background, you must first come with the attitude of a learner. What’s to be acquired? Cross-cultural skills, language, new healthcare systems, new public health
One beauty of Jesus’ account of the Good Samaritan is the virtue it demonstrates of a person reaching beyond the prevailing social norms and barriers; a virtue applicable to any particular community across the world. This sketch is here in the entryway at Lubango Evangelical Medical Centers. Have you read the account recently? Take
I’m pictured here with Sapolo, a man of forty-five whom I first cared for a week ago. His pneumonia, the leading cause of death in low-income nations, was at that time severe. In spite of oxygen and antibiotic Sapolo’s chest weaved more greatly and his alertness declined as the oxygen to his brain diminished.
Last night I received an urgent call from our head nurse. Sónia, a girl of seven, was suffering worse respiratory distress. And suddenly, she began coughing up pus from the abscess in her neck. I was very familiar with Sónia, having admitted her four days earlier with severe cough, fever, and pneumonia. We have
This Sunday morning I enjoyed a stroll through the village next to our hospital where patients and families await their consultations, treatments, and rehabilitation. Look carefully at this scene. Some people are shivering, for it’s only about 50 degrees F. In the center a silver pot of cornmeal is boiling on a rudimentary charcoal
A time-tested right of conscience for healthcare professionals is the offering of free or discounted care to people in need. Prior the advent of managed care in the 1980s it was common for hospitals and healthcare professionals in the US to give such assistance on a case-by-case. But outside of an emergency department, today’s