The progress of today’s Ebola epidemic is largely being tracked through the commentary of one fortunate Ebola survivor: the physician Kent Brantly, stricken as he himself cared for Ebola sufferers. This disease, which to date has sickened about 7,500 person and killed 3,400 of them, bears some resemblance to another terrifying, contagious, viral disease: […]
What is the most dangerous day in a person’s entire life? Perhaps the one when a teenager receives his or her driver’s license, the first big college party event, a rock climbing or back woods vacation? Worldwide data actually demonstrate that the highest risk of death – life’s most dangerous day – is the
I’m holding up to the window a plain X-ray (remember those?) from a young man in acute pain that fell from a moving bus in Angola, southern Africa. As you can see, the femur fracture is displaced and shortened. As you cannot see, this is also an open fracture. Bony fragments have pierced the
This week I have been approached by a number of well-meaning parents and travelers over the hazards associated with various routine vaccinations. Indeed, no vaccine is 100 percent effective nor 100 percent safe. But let us pause a moment and consider the alternative: measles – the disease afflicting the child in this photo. Measles
With eagerness and a dose of trepidation you step into a new clinical setting. On your far left a Somali woman is delivering twins with the aid of two students and a supervisor. On your right a young Asian man gasps for breathe as a resident physician and a faculty examine him. In the
The INMED Exploring Medical Missions Conference will present you the chance to test your skills to the extreme. This event will include Tropical Medicine Rounds: A simulation of patient care in a resource-poor hospital with scenarios like the following three case study questions. Would you be able to pass an examination on these cases?
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
You are in Mozambique volunteering at a birthing center. The midwives are entirely African nationals who will have no backup once you depart. One evening reflecting on this fact you determine to vigilantly transfer your skills to permanent staff. At that moment a voice comes from the door, “The baby will not come down
You are in Burma teaching Helping Babies Breathe – a newborn resuscitation curriculum for resource-limited settings. Your venue is a Burmese national hospital with an assembly of excited nurses and midwives. But your presentation is suddenly interrupted by an urgent call from the postpartum floor: “We have a baby who is not breathing.”
Some 600,000 women die worldwide each year from pregnancy-related causes, and 98 percent of these deaths occur in developing countries. The major causes of maternal deaths in developing nations, in numerical order of importance, are hemorrhage, peripartum sepsis, abortion, eclampsia and obstructed labor/ruptured uterus. Regarding the latter, obstructed and prolonged labor alone leads to