MedicalMissions.com Podcast

Historically, the medical goals of medical missions have focused primarily upon primary care, preventive care, and infectious diseases. While these continue to be areas of great need throughout the world, and justifiably remain laudable goals of medical missions, a great deal of literature has emerged in recent years regarding the enormous burden of chronic disease in developing countries. Correct...

Particpants will be presented with ideas and options for securing and transporting Physical and Occupational Therapy supplies and equipment for short term mission trips. The participants will also be exposed to the expectations of working in the clinic with general descriptions of the workings of a short term Physical and Occupational Therapy clinic. Instructions will include the relationship with...

4 years ago my wife and I felt the Lord was calling us to relocate our family of five into a historic African American community in Memphis, TN. While the neighborhood had a proud heritage it had fallen victim to seeing most of the successful professionals move out of the neighborhood and as a result drugs, gangs and poverty had now replaced the proud heritage with a reputation for being one of th...

"Rural America" conjures up warm, innocent images from Norman Rockwell paintings. Today, however, small town America could not be further from this picture. Broken homes, epidemic drug abuse, staggering unemployment, and paralyzing depression have ravaged these once nostalgic streets. We’re not in Mayberry anymore! God has called all of us to serve, yet medical missions in rural America...

Before we can understand God's will for us, we must first understand his overarching plan to glorify himself among all nations. This breakout session will explore God's mission and our response to him, common barriers that prevent us from surrendering to God's mission, and disciplines that prepare us to do God's will.

The United States is a much overlooked field in global missions. 96 million people live in areas designated as medically underserved. All of those are communities where poverty is rampant and resources are low. Not only are those areas of great need, they are areas of tremendous opportunity where the harvest is ripe for the gospel. The Director of Christian Community Health Fellowship will share a...

Moved by our compassion and the example of Christ to care for vulnerable and marginalized people suffering the ravages of disease, our response is often to build a clinic and send doctors and nurses to provide care. However, that assumes that if we build the clinic, people will come and if they come, they and their families will get healthy and stay healthy. Together we will explore the meaning of...

Contemporary criticism by global health experts of much of short term medical missions activity (Dead Aid, When Helping Hurts) is valid. We have a tendency to justify use of US diagnostic and treatment guidelines in low income countries as equitable while demonstrably unreasonable and harmful. Careful consideration of the whole care process from care access to care follow-up including all costs in...

1.2 million young children die each year due to acute respiratory infection. Careful attention to appropriate diagnosis, evidenced-based management, and preventive strategies can help prevent these unnecessary and tragic deaths.

Pregnant women and children are at particular risk of malaria in endemic areas, and all non-immune visitors to these areas risk severe disease and death. This session will review the epidemiology, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of malaria with special focus on pregnant women, children, and travelers.

Despite declining HIV prevalence and AIDS death rate in many countries, HIV/AIDS remains a tremendous challenge with medical, emotional, economic and social problems. Using case presentations and an interactive format, this workshop will explore HIV/AIDS care and treatment issues particularly from the speaker’s experience in Africa

many of the consequences of human trafficking have health ramifications, both physical and mental. It is important to be aware of these to help in identification of victims and to meet their health needs

This session will give a general overview of the topic of human trafficking specifically designed for healthcare professionals. It will cover both domestic and international trafficking as well as sex and labor trafficking. The session will also discuss general identifiers of human trafficking, as well as how to prepare to respond to victims of human trafficking in the healthcare setting.

This session will look at antibiotics appropriate for treatment of dental infections and for antibiotic prophylaxis as well as discussing antibiotic misuse and increasing drug resistance.

Oral Surgery can be particularly challenging on the mission field. In addition to dealing with communication and language difficulties, there are cross-cultural issues and often the lack of x-rays, proper lighting, poor suction, the lack of a trained assistant and possibly the lack of some necessary equipment. Some teams have no dentist on board and many dentists do only limited oral surgery in th...

This session will focus on the medications used to treat malaria. Most of the discussion will be focused on malaria treatment outside of the US, but time will also be spent to compare the global treatment of malaria to the treatment of malaria "imported" into the US. The session will end with a look at medications currently undergoing investigation for the treatment of malaria in the fut...

Mental Health challenges are among those that bear the greatest burden of disease and disability in every country evaluated. Special challenges of diagnosing and caring for people suffering from mental health challenges in Africa will be addressed.

While embarking on a general surgical career as a worker in Africa, I found the breadth of surgical need far beyond my narrow thinking. General surgery gave way to gynecolgy, plastic surgery, orthopedics, urology, and ultimately neurosurgery as pertaining primarily to children with hydrocephalus and spina bifida. The rehab surgery has endured as my focus for the last thirty years. It has been a jo...

As therapists working in developed countries we often have resources including specialized treatments and innovative state of the art equipment that allows us to do many special things for our patients. However when the therapist is in a situation where the resources become limited it takes planning and creativity to be able to meet the needs of your patients. In this session you will be presented...

Fever is a common and recurrent diagnostic dilemma for medical providers in tropical regions or those who see international travelers. Patterns of fever and associated clinical findings often provide important clinical clues to direct diagnostic testing and therapy. Join in an interactive session that will review the causes of fever in various parts of the world. This session will focus on the dia...

Infertility rates are highest in low resource countries and unfortunately these are the same areas where a woman's worth is frequently based upon her her child bearing abilities. This session will look at common causes of infertility and available treatment options

Travel to developing countries exposes one personally and professionally to new and unfamiliar diseases. This session will review real cases illustrating common tropical worms and germs. Join in the group discussion and diagnostic challenge.

Opportunities for mentoring , discipling and learning from majority world healthcare leaders of today and tomorrow have never been more available or diverse. Ministering healing in Jesus’ name can occur within CANs; within national nursing, medical and other allied health schools; and within a growing number of Christian university-based ,health professions schools. Making a long term commitment a...

This session will outline the advantages of medical education missions compared to direct care missions, give examples of organizations with which attendees can participate in short term medical education missions, identify challenges participants face and ways they can be overcome, and provide examples of the long term impacts recent short term medical education missions have had.

The missionary nurse role has changed over the years from 'doer' of nursing to 'teacher' of nursing. Educational requirements and practice requirements have increased thus the missionary nurse must allow of increased preparation time. Language learning is a critical component of nursing and missions.