Content Resources

This session will explore the distinctive characteristics of Christian medical missions compared to humanitarian missions. It will look at biblical guidelines for ministering in Jesus’ name and examine practical applications for those engaged in Christian medical missions.

Resilient, balanced, resourceful, and culturally sensitive expatriates galvanize cross-cultural ventures. Mental health is the bedrock; yet, a surfeit of narrative disparages global enterprise because of misfortune provoked by psychological maladies. Expectations
are realigned when the epidemiology of mental health disorders are considered
in the context of complex cross-cultural transitions. Predisposing attributes, demands and awareness of risk foster a resolve to care. Evidence-based practice aligns expertise; care combines “best practice” with sensitivity to points of access on the substrate of the recipient’s worldview.

This session will give a brief overview of the problem of macronutrient malnutrition (protein-energy malnutrition), its pathophysiology as a “metabolic disorder,” its diagnosis, and best practices to ensure optimum outcomes highlighting the WHOs ten step approach.

This session addresses the difficult question: “If God
is good and wants us to be healthy, why do we get sick and die?” I tell the story of my wife who went “safely home” in spite of medicine, much prayer, and inner healing, and the new lessons about life and disease I have learned from this.

Nutritional deficiencies continue to plague many children in resource-limited areas. Current knowledge in the “developed” world is not always adequate in determining how to care
for affected children in “developing” countries,
and fresh research can be useful in helping children
all over the world. Using examples of studies of generalized malnutrition and of deficiencies of calcium, vitamin D, and thiamine, participants will gain an understanding of how low-cost investigations carried out in resource-limited areas can have high-yield in advancing science and in curing children.

The session outlines resources of the biblical worldview and how they transformed the culture of Europe and the Near East in the first centuries after Christ, the culture of Great Britain in the 18th Century, and of South Korea in the 20th Century. The session describes what we, as Christian healthcare providers, must do to bring transformation to the peoples and cultures of Africa, Haiti, Latin America, and other non-developing areas of the world.

Research provides a means of helping many people in many places over many years. And, it is possible to do useful research “on the field” in the midst of a busy clinical practice. This session will review possibilities and principles that lead to science-advancing, patient- helping, resource-affordable clinical research.

Many creative access countries are among the poorest and most needy in the world, yet Christian witness is limited. Effective primary care is an essential component of all health systems. Locally trained Family Medicine specialists can provide excellent primary care in limited resource settings. With some constraints doctors from “the West” are welcome in creative access countries to develop residency training in Family Medicine. The lessons learned from eight years of Family Medicine training in Afghanistan will be discussed with particular attention
to those lessons that are applicable to other creative access countries.

The practice of pediatrics
in much of the developing world involves the care of children with malaria, often presenting in critical condition where prompt diagnosis and treatment can be life-saving and minimize morbidity. This session will discuss malaria in terms of presentation, diagnosis, treatment, complications, and prevention, in the context of the often less-than-optimal medical setting of the developing world. Recent changes and controversies will be included in the discussion. Although all species of Plasmodium will be mentioned, the emphasis will be on falciparum malaria.

Only a small minority of healthcare students who aspire to be missionaries actually serve long-term. One in five medical missionaries don’t stick with it for more than four years. There are daunting obstacles to going and to staying. Using both research data and the presenter’s experiences, this session will identify the best strategies for preparation that lead to long-term success.

Christian Community Health and Development organizers need to be thinking beyond the implementation of projects scattered here and there in targeted communities, to movements that sweep the whole country. There are keys to mobilizing medical volunteers and leveraging community. To achieve this, greater attention must be given to mobilizing volunteers who participate in their own development and work together to sustain and build on their successes. In this workshop we will learn keys to mobilizing community volunteers who transfer what they have experienced and learned from person to person and community to community, taking the Gospel with them as they go.

The recent research on HIV reported in the past year
has been characterized by leaders in the field as ‘game changing.’ There are new approaches to prevention
and treatment that have the potential for major changes
in the way the disease is approached. This breakout session will not only discuss these developments, but it will also be an opportunity for you to be involved in discussions about how the developments can best be utilized and the complex issues surrounding implementation, funding, and cultural issues.