Itʼs hard to find words to describe our month in West Africa. We are overwhelmed at how God provided and how he created wonderful opportunities for us to learn about serving as medical missionaries.
In Ghana, we worked at the Baptist Medical Center. We were allowed to “take over” the care of the pediatrics ward with the supervision of the long-term physicians, and saw pediatric patients in clinic.
The Medical Center is well-organized and provides a great
service to the surrounding community, and an example to volunteers of providing quality care in a rural setting. We learned one approach to providing healthcare to an underserved community, especially with the love of Jesus as the central focus. It was good to see the things that compose “the basics” of a hospital that serves all ages, and to see how to take care of people well with such limited resources.
We visited the BMC in the height of malaria season, and thus had plenty of opportunities to learn about the clinical aspects of the disease, as well as the impact on society. We were stunned to see the ward filled (and overwhelmed) with patients suffering from the complications of malaria, and also amazed at the number of patients we sent home from clinic with prescriptions to treat the same. Before working at the
BMC, we had heard the statistics of malaria and the number of people that die from its effects, but seeing the deaths of children firsthand has put a face on those numbers.
We feel a much greater sense of urgency in the quest to find a cure/vaccine/etc for malaria, and are so thankful for the efforts of people who are devoting their careers to such work.
One of the biggest problems we faced at the BMC was the unpredictable administration of seizure medications. With the frequent admission of children with seizures (as the result of malaria), we saw children receiving seizure medications daily, and often at incorrect (and sometimes dangerous) doses. We expressed our concerns to Dr. Hewitt, who sympathized with our frustration, and asked if we would be interested in teaching the nurses about these medications. We were excited to have the opportunity, and prepared an in-service for the nurses before our time was over. We taught about seizures, the reasons to treat with medication, the risks of those medications, and the appropriate administration/dosing. We also revised their nursing protocol (for giving medication when the doctor has not otherwise specified), so that the doses given are safe and effective.
Another issue we encountered was the lack of education in neonatal resuscitation techniques. We attended deliveries during which the effort given to resuscitating the newborn was inadequate, usually due to the staffʼs lack of knowledge that a significant percentage of healthy newborns need assistance to start breathing. We helped
resuscitate those newborns, but wished that we had been able to educate the nurses/midwives more formally. We continue to brainstorm about how we could get that education to them in the future, and wonder if we will have the opportunity to do the
same someday (whether in Ghana, Guinea, or elsewhere).
In Guinea, we spent time building/strengthening relationships with local pastors, teachers, and physicians, and exploring opportunities for ministry in Conakry. We visited both a local clinic and the government hospital. While this portion of the trip was not about us working as physicians, we are excited about the opportunity to join in the work that has already been started in the city. We saw the difference between a large hospital in the capital city and a small mission hospital in a rural setting, as the facilities of the government hospital were very run down, yet provided a wider array of services to patients, simply because access to resources is greater. We were excited by the prospect of improving the educational system in such a setting, as the staff clearly have a hunger for more education.
Coming home from this trip, there is no doubt that we feel called to serve the world through medicine -- specifically, the developing world. We are thankful that we were able to visit both locations, as it is always exciting to see what God is doing in different parts of the world. We are prayerfully considering ministry in Guinea, as we process the things we saw in both places and dream about what God might use us to do. This trip emphatically confirmed that we would love to find ourselves ministering together, as we found it encouraging and, at times, necessary to have the support of each other (as physicians, as women or as men, as wives or husbands, as friends).
Rachel Jamison and Courtney Baldridge
Posted on
Tue, August 30, 2011
by Jamison-Baldridge