ICMDA World Congress

After three full days of meetings, we are now on the final, fourth day of the Congress and preparing to fly home. Over 700 doctors, medical students and nurses from over fifty nations have been gathered together in the resort city of Punta del Este in Uruguay, and it has been a time of great blessings and encouragement. And this followed on from three days of a well received preconference programme for students, PRIME and International Saline tutors and Psychiatrists.

The Bible expositions by Pablo Martinez have been excellent, looking at the life of Joseph, while the plenaries have looked incisively at what it means to serve God through our work.

However, it has as ever been the relationships and meetings outside of the formal programme that have borne the most fruit. The Zimbabwean doctors and students were excited to share how things are changing in their nation after ten, difficult years, and thanked CMF in the UK for our ongoing fellowship and support. Over the breakfast table various groups have been discussing how we can advance training and mentoring for the next generation of Christian leaders in medicine and nursing, and advance the wider training programmes for doctors, nurses being developed by PRIME, ICMDA, HCFI, International Saline, NCFI and others.

This has also been a key meeting for ICMDA as the leadership changes hands. Our own Kevin Vaughan has taken on the chairmanship from Australia's Peter Ravenscroft, while the General Secretary Daryl Hackland is preparing to step down at the end of this year and hand over Vinod Shah of India.

ICMDA also welcomed several national fellowships as new members, including Malawi, Sudan, Ethiopia, Bolivia, Brazil, Nepal, and we also welcomed a lively (and sizeable) New Zealand contingent and our old friend Matt Kehoe.

NCFI and HCFI also had a presence at the conference, co-leading a two day nursing seminar programme in parallel to the main conference for around twenty five nurses from across Latin America and further afield –exploring the concept and practice of total patient care.

We enjoyed some excellent food, and despite a couple of days of torrential mid-winter rain, we have enjoyed some glorious weather, some great food. Latin America came closer to us all, and we were encouraged to think more of the Spanish speaking world in our international vision.