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 their practices. How can we be prepared and what are some of the techniques that we can use that might be of help as we care for those who often have never seen a dentist before and are in pain or have been in pain. Releiving pain and infection and doing no harm is only one of the pressing issues when we are out of our comfort zone working in a small dark area where we could be injured and where the incidence of HIV may be quite high.
Effective medication use is always culturally-dependent: from the manner in which medications are legally acquired and transported into a culture to the patient-by-patient interactions necessary for safe and effective outcomes. This discussion will highlight some culturally-relevant issues and remedies specifically regarding these two ends of the medication use process.
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 future.
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 journey where there are few surgeons involved and where the huge needs seem to have opened a wonderful spiritual path.
