Can You Help?
BY KEITH DOUGLASS WARNER, OFM, PHDAbout 21 percent of Mexico's population lives in rural areas, according to the World Bank, yet only 2.3 percent of the country's 259,000 practicing physicians work there. That may seem like an insurmountable problem to some, but to Haywood Hall, MD, a high-school-dropout-turned-emergency-physician, it was a perfect opportunity to found PACE MD, a program that aims to enhance health care delivery in Mexico.Mexico's fragmented health system with substantial but often poorly coordinated resources was crying out for someone to teach rural Mexican physicians, all of whom were fully qualified by...
Source: Going Global - January 11, 2017 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
A Connection to Samoa
BY TIM DEPP, MDNo one knows when the first Samoans landed on what is now the Samoan Islands, the destination of our journey. The Samoans have most likely been there for several thousand years, since the Lapita people (ancestors of the Polynesians) migrated there between 1200 and 1000 BC, making Samoan culture, in a word, ancient. Spaniards, pirates, and missionaries came and went. And "fa'asamoa," the Samoan way, has continued, albeit somewhat changed. Important distinctions are maintained, including the divide between the sovereign nation of Samoa (formerly Western Samoa) and American Samoa (a U.S. protect...
Source: Going Global - January 6, 2017 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
Making a Lasting Impact in Nicaragua
By CASEY GRAVES, MDThe Northeast Presbyterian Church (NEPC) has been organizing mission trips to Nicaragua for many years. These trips generally comprise operating roving clinics and performing ministry work in different parts of the country each year. Recently, they added a new option: The church began sending volunteers to a newly established clinic in an extremely poor community to provide affordable care, and I was one of them. Cristo Rey was a community formed from the good intentions of the Spanish government, which carries out a significant amount of humanitarian work in Nicaragua. Many...
Source: Going Global - December 5, 2016 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
Making a Lasting Impact in Nicaragua
By CASEY GRAVES, MDThe Northeast Presbyterian Church (NEPC) has been organizing mission trips to Nicaragua for many years. These trips generally comprise operating roving clinics and performing ministry work in different parts of the country each year. Recently, they added a new option: The church began sending volunteers to a newly established clinic in an extremely poor community to provide affordable care, and I was one of them. Cristo Rey was a community formed from the good intentions of the Spanish government, which carries out a significant amount of humanitarian work in Nicaragua. Many...
Source: Going Global - December 5, 2016 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
Elephants and Mobile Clinics in Uganda
By Luke Husby, DO, and Heather Brown, MDWe arrived in rural Masindi, Uganda, after more than 24 hours of air travel and a five-hour van ride over the only two paved roads in the country. The travel was fairly exhausting.The Masindi-Kitara Medical Centre (MKMC) is a fully functional hospital in Masindi, Uganda, run by Palmetto Medical Initiative (PMI), a nonprofit organization based in Charleston, SC. MKMC has multiple nurses, an inpatient ward, and obstetrics, gynecologic, surgical, and outpatient wards. It recently established itself as a low-cost, self-sustainable, private clinic to offset the two opposing ends of the...
Source: Going Global - March 1, 2016 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
A Trip to India
BY MICHAEL DAUM, MDI had the wonderful privilege of visiting three different cities in India for 16 days during my third year of residency. My original impression of India was, "Wow." This country could not be any more different from what I am used to.I am just a small-town boy from southern Indiana, but my medical training has given me the opportunity to visit poverty-stricken areas and witness different medical practices in Honduras, Guatemala, and Haiti. But India was just different. Name anything. From the obvious — language, food, population density, climate, dress, and religion — to the not-so obvious ...
Source: Going Global - February 1, 2016 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
Patients in the Himalayas Grateful for Care
BY RACHEL EDWARDS, MD
I traveled to India in August 2014 with Himalayan Health Exchange (HHE), which organizes groups of attending physicians, residents, medical students, and nurses from around the world to travel to one of the most remote parts of the world, deep in the Himalayan Mountains. Our route took us to the Pangi Valley of Northern India, where the road we traveled has only existed for a decade and is impassable during the winter months when the road is covered in snow. The people who live there are resilient and hardened by their environment of mountainous terrain and harsh climate.
Our group, es...
Source: Going Global - November 18, 2015 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
Patients in the Himalayas Grateful for Care
BY RACHEL EDWARDS, MD
I traveled to India in August 2014 with Himalayan Health Exchange (HHE), which organizes groups of attending physicians, residents, medical students, and nurses from around the world to travel to one of the most remote parts of the world, deep in the Himalayan Mountains. Our route took us to the Pangi Valley of Northern India, where the road we traveled has only existed for a decade and is impassable during the winter months when the road is covered in snow. The people who live there are resilient and hardened by their environment of mountainous terrain and harsh climate.
Our group, escorted...
Source: Going Global - November 18, 2015 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
Luke and Lesley’s Excellent Samoan Adventure
BY LUKE HUSBY, MD, & AND LESLEY OSBORN, MD
Ten hours of air time and three cities later, we arrived in the Honolulu airport to be greeted by the Samoan travelers who would be guiding us around Samoa.
Once we arrived in Pago Pago in American Samoa, we hit the ground running with a quick trip to the supply cache at a nearby pastor’s house. After a few hours of sorting, we were ready for the week with the pharmaceuticals, bandages, durable medical equipment, and other supplies that we’d need.
Each plane had a weight limit, and there was only one plane with 31 volunteers. The plane made multipl...
Source: Going Global - February 2, 2015 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
Luke and Lesley’s Excellent Samoan Adventure
BY LUKE HUSBY, MD, & AND LESLEY OSBORN, MD
Ten hours of air time and three cities later, we arrived in the Honolulu airport to be greeted by the Samoan travelers who would be guiding us around Samoa.
Once we arrived in Pago Pago in American Samoa, we hit the ground running with a quick trip to the supply cache at a nearby pastor’s house. After a few hours of sorting, we were ready for the week with the pharmaceuticals, bandages, durable medical equipment, and other supplies that we’d need.
Each plane had a weight limit, and there was only one plane with 31 volunteers. The plane made multiple trips ...
Source: Going Global - January 30, 2015 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
Special to Going Global Blog: The 'Why' of Ultrasound
By Christine Butts, MD
I typically write my columns about the “how” of ultrasound, but it's also important to think about the “why.” Ultrasound to me is a tool that can be shared across cultures and barriers to broaden education and to improve patient care.
So when a colleague approached me about teaching ultrasound in Kurdistan, Iraq, I was intrigued. Nervous but intrigued. I have been teaching ultrasound to residents, students, and other faculty here in the States for almost seven years, but have always harbored a desire to teach internationally.
I spent two months as a medical student working in a...
Source: Going Global - January 9, 2015 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
