Zhangyi suffers from atherosclerosis blocking blood flow to her legs. Just taking a few steps brings on excruciating pain signaling near death of her toes and feet. But being retired and in residential care, transportation issues limit Zhangyi access to medical consultation. Wanghui is a six-month old orphan, body critically thin, and with […]
Nov 14 to Dec 14 I was again in Shenyang, northeastern China working alongside my colleagues at LIGHT – Liaoning International General Health Trainers. This is a full-time team of Chinese healthcare personnel providing care to the most vulnerable people of this enormous city. One memorable day the I drove with the LIGHT
Born with his intestines lying outside his abdomen, death was imminent for a baby in West Africa. His grandmother gathered up the newborn, scrambling with hope that someone could save her grandson. Lisa Mohrman, surgeon on watch at Ghana’s Baptist Medical Center, received the baby and in the operating room repaired his abdominal deformity.
In October was privileged to present the INMED Cross-Cultural Healthcare Awards at the annual Cross-Cultural Healthcare Symposium. The point of these awards is to recognize the heroes among us who both model and teach this virtue of service. The INMED Cross-Cultural Leadership Award recognizes one who has made significant leadership contributions to bridging
You are volunteering in Honduras by providing vacation coverage for the clinicians whom you met at the INMED Exploring Medical Missions Conference. A young mother approaches your health center carrying a one-year old child. He is febrile and breathing rapidly with shallow chest excursions. You are alarmed to observe that his sputum is mixed
By what metric should we evaluate the effectiveness of healthcare among those who are poor? We could measure health data, like child mortality and life expectancy. We could also measure health knowledge or literacy – the degree to which people understand their medical conditions. But it is neither data nor knowledge that most compels
Can you do medical missions at home? Is it possible, even healthier, to fulfill your visions via service to people in your midst? “Yes absolutely,” responds Colette Fleming, pediatrician at Samuel Rogers Health Center. “I want to do a medical mission trip to Haiti. Here, on the other hand, I immerse myself everyday among
My heroes: Wendy & Greg Nyhus. I joined them in 2010 at Baptist Med Center in northern Ghana, where they coordinated the host of international volunteers and established a chicken farm to support the orphanage, both by providing food to eat and eggs to sell. Before they ever met, Greg was the business
This moment I am writing from Angola in southern Africa where I work each summer. Volunteering here requires a significant personal, emotional, and financial investment. Is it right for YOU? Let’s dissect the outcomes you would expect from a term in Africa and explore whether such a venture is in your future: You will
The photo above is the upper tibia of Ezekiel – the mature man about whom I wrote on Angola Day 23. The black cavity is the space from where four days earlier we excised the necrotic bone of osteomyelitis. What’s left is a thin remnant of bone on the posterior surface of his tibia.