Content Resources

The last contact we have with our patients is often discussing and dispensing their medications. This session will examine barriers and provide strategies to address cross-cultural: communication with patients, issues in appropriate patient medication use, and methods to provide clear instructions when counseling patients on medications.

The needs of long-term expatriate workers are quite different from those of the short-term worker. Long-term strategies include more flexible malaria prophylaxis regimens (covering high risk seasons), self treatment options for diarrhea and malaria, additional disease concerns (Japanese encephalitis, rabies) and dealing with mental health issues such as culture shock and depression.

Caring for Asian patients from other cultures offers some unique challenges, whether these are recent immigrants to the U.S. or patients seen in overseas settings. Language is just the first obstacle and often professional interpreters are a necessity. Cultural expectations differ by country. High context Asian cultures can make it difficult to communicate even after language issues are resolved. Many illnesses present differently with physical complaints often masking mental health concerns. Familiarity with various Asian culture bound syndromes is essential.

Regardless of your background, short-term and long-term, medical and non-medical mission workers alike are going to be faced with dental emergencies. Determining the course of action, including proper diagnosis and treatment, along with knowing when and where to refer when necessary, is important to patient health. This course will cover potential dental emergencies that may present as well as stress the importance of understanding the local health care system and the professionals working within that system.Learning objectives:1) List potential dental emergencies, presenting signs and symptoms and appropriate treatment2) Articulate the importance of understanding the local health care system when working cross-culturally

Abdominal surgery in Africa will focus on the incidence, diagnosis and the medical/surgical management of the most common clinical problems. The availability of medical personnel, facilities, and equipment will be discussed as well as the long-term need for surgical training.

Although largely framed as a legal issue, a social issue, and sometimes a geo-political issue, human trafficking is also a public health issue. Public health approaches consider all of these factors to take local information to make locally-appropriate interventions. It can also take local data to help feed our global pool of knowledge regarding this complex issue. Human Trafficking is both an individual as well as a public health issue. While direct health care is important, health professionals and organizations need to move beyond this and get involved in prevention, research, developing appropriate treatment guidelines, and monitoring and evaluation of health care interventions. We are against human trafficking because it harms people - so let's take approaches that will really work to mitigate, or even prevent, that harm.

In 2010, The Continuing Medical and Dental Education Commission of CMDA approved a working group to investigate the experience of medical missionaries with a view to providing information to assist mission agencies in setting a current and sustainable medical mission strategy. The PRISM (Patterns and Responses in Intercultural Service in Medicine) survey is a research report that summarizes those findings. This talk will involve a discussion of the salient, challenging, and sometimes surprising findings of what our full-time, long-term cross-cultural colleagues are facing today.

Excellent local training for Christian health professionals is one sure way to improve health services in many developing countries. Local schools, colleges and universities train the entire continuum of health workers – from community-based to specialty medical care professionals. Unfortunately, the quality of training is uneven in these institutions and local professionals may have not fully considered why being a Christian health professional is unique and special – making this a growing area for missions. This session will explore issues in developing robust, high quality Christian training centers for health professionals through partnerships with a network of Christian health professionals. This session explores lessons from such partnerships with US and Canadian universities involved in Uganda Christian University’s highly successful nursing and public health program, as well as other higher education partnerships. In particular, we will highlight the requirements for partnerships, the emerging role of technology, and implications for future development. Participants will have opportunities to share from their own experience, and help frame issues for future development.

Frontline health workers are vital to local health systems, as they are often based in the community and come from within the community they serve. They include community health workers, nurses, midwives, pharmacists and others who primarily work at the community level. They help families and individuals connect to health services, and in some cases are capable of providing lifesaving assistance. Where and how are these people identified and trained? What is the emerging role for medical missions in this area? This session will explore the emerging trends, opportunities and requirements for training of front line health workers, identifying challenges of recruiting qualified workers to serve in underserved areas. Examples will come from a review of international research on frontline health workers and personal experiences shared from the East Africa context. Participants will have opportunities to share from their own experience, and help frame issues for future development.

This session will be a review of treatment of commonly seen parasitic infections while overseas. The focus will predominantly be on parasitic infections of the gastrointestinal system but will also cover some dermatological infections as well.

Deformities, both congenital and acquired, have a profound and often negative impact in the Emerging World. Deformities may be internal as well as external. Though internal deformities may not be seen they are often more severe and debilitating. The negative effects of external deformities are seen world-wide and in every culture and civilization. In the West, children born with deformities are often operated on early and may not be seen in public. Though family members may often ask “why us,” any negative thoughts are kept to themselves. In the emerging world, children with deformities, especially external ones, are often kept inside the house where they are hidden from view, and they are only taken outside with a shawl or blanket covering the deformity or at nighttime. Treatment for deformities is often not readily available in the developing world. When they are seen by other members of the community, some think the family has been cursed or that the deformed one is indwelt with an evil spirit. When these children are brought to a mission hospital, reconstructive surgery may not completely eliminate the deformity or its consequences; however the significant improvement allows the children to be accepted into the local society. The treatment of these children gives the missionary doctor and hospital staff a great opportunity to show the love and compassion of Jesus Christ and many parents and older children have come to know Christ as their Savior.

As a head and neck cancer surgeon, I have served as a volunteer short-term faculty member for the Pan African Academy of Christian Surgeons (PAACS) in Cameroon, Ethiopia, and Kenya for the past 6 years. In that setting, I have cared for a small cross-section of congenital and neoplastic head and neck tumors. These challenging cases require a high level of technical expertise and equipment as well as good team work for management and rehabilitation. In addition, teaching general surgery residents to manage these cases involves introduction to unfamiliar anatomy, concern for cosmetic and functional consequences and ability to make accurate diagnosis, pre-operative assessments for planning, and management of routine and complicated post-operative situations. These concerns will be illustrated with several exemplary cases, and opportunities for short-term and subspecialty faculty in PAACS will be discussed.