Developing Health Course - Tuesday 29 June

Back for week two of the course, refreshed by a weekend off. A few of our international visitors enjoyed a trip round some of the sights of London – Herve from Benin was amazed to see how the British dress outside Buckingham Palace...

Monday was trauma and orthopaedics day and we had a star-studded cast of lecturers including CMF's very own Giles Cattermole in his other incarnation as a consultant in emergency medicine, the inimitable Ranti and Verona and the wonderful Chris Lavy (always good to make full use of friends and family!) The amazing statistic of the day for me was that 10% of all the deaths in the world are the result of trauma – more than malaria, HIV and TB combined. And of course in the developing world, emergency treatment is often inaccessible, ineffective or unavailable.

Orthopaedic surgeons have the wonderful priviledge of making the lame walk. But today we learned that non-orthopods can do that too. Chris told the story of the Malawi club foot training programme which trained local health workers to treat this common, disabling condition. In 2009, 81% of the country's 1,500 new cases were treated. So with coordinated effort and input around the world, it would not be impossible to treat the 150,000 new cases born each year and give every child a chance to walk. So much to do – and so much could be done – if people are prepared to step out and serve.

Vicky Lavy
Head of International Ministries

Developing Health Course - Friday 25th June

Today is community health day and I'm currently in the back of the lecture theatre watching Alex Duncan's amazing video of life in the back of beyond in Central Asia. He lived there for 6 years with his family, setting up a primary health care programme. It was hard graft but through his work, child mortality fell from 32% to 21%. Amazing.

This morning we had a moving talk from Maureen Wilkinson on community mental health. In terms of global causes of mortality, neuropsychiatric disease is low on the list, but in terms of years of life lived with disability, it is far and away the leader of the field. We heard heart-rending stories of people with psychiatric illness shut away for years, or even tied up with shackles, and so often mental health is seen as a low priority in developing countries. Challenging.

Back to Gisela's question – 'What is medical mission?' After her mission director's crushing assumption that her medical work wasn't real 'mission,' she went away and studied the whole subject. Her conclusion was that restoring health is not a means to an end – to provide the opportunity for church planting – but comes from God's heart to restore a broken world and build his kingdom. Through medical mission and authentic Christian living, God manifests himself in the midst of suffering, and transforms individuals and communities. Inspiring.

Signing off now for the weekend – hoping to catch up on the tennis which has passed me by during this busy week – back on Monday for the next instalment.

Vicky Lavy
Head of International Ministries

Developing Health Course update - Thursday 24 June

Two more full days of the course - mosquitoes, worms, and other hazardous parasites yesterday and HIV and palliative care today. There is a bit of time at the end of the day to enjoy that rare event, the English summer evening, and Albert from Malawi has played his first game of croquet - 'Give me another couple of goes at this and I'll be dangerous!'

The amazing Gisela Schneider gave expert teaching on HIV today and this evening talked on 'What is medical mission?' She spoke about her experience as a missionary doctor in West Africa where she worked for 20 years before moving into HIV work in Uganda. When she first arrived in the Gambia, she was the only doctor for 150,000 people. She ran a mission hospital, doing all the caesarians, night calls, clinics and the rest. When she had been there for 4 years, the director of her mission came for a visit. She showed him the hospital and all the patients.... and he said 'So when do you do your mission work?'

Too tired to write more now - it's exhausting running the course - so I'll tell you what her answer was tomorrow.

Vicky Lavy
Head of International Ministries

Developing Health Course

It’s been a wonderful couple of days at the Developing Health Course with the combination of excellent medical teaching and spiritual inspiration which makes this course unique. My brain is hurting a little after whistling through the whole of paediatrics in a day yesterday, and the whole of general medicine in an afternoon today! There were fun and games in the paediatric practical skills workshop where Resusci-baby got intubated, cannulated and ventilated – but sadly didn’t look any better at the end of the session.

One of the best things about the course is meeting people who’ve worked in all sorts of places and hearing their stories. Tonight I ran a ‘chat show’ and interviewed a few of the participants. We heard from one doctor who wondered why everyone suddenly fell to the floor during her ward round in Sudan and then realised that bullets were flying outside the hospital! Another participant has to watch for altitude sickness whenever she returns from work in the city to her home in the mountains of Tibet. We heard about struggles with spiritual oppression and corruption and about the joy of training people and seeing them learn and grow both medically and spiritually.

David Yorston gave us a wonderful lecture on eyes. He reminded us that ophthalmology must be important as Jesus did more healing of blindness than any other specialty! However he also reflected on Jesus’ remarkable promise in John 14:12 that we will do even greater things than he has done. During his earthly ministry, Jesus healed a handful of blind people in Palestine. But now, God’s ophthalmologists around the world are doing literally millions of sight-restoring cataract operations every year.

What a privilege to be a part of God’s healing ministry – not because we are extraordinary people, but we are ordinary people with an extraordinary God. I was moved by a phrase written by a missionary doctor, quaking in his boots as he started an operation – ‘It’s a tiny needle, but in the mighty hand of God.’

Vicky Lavy
Head of International Ministries