Monday, May 04, 2015

An unexpected opportunity



There is something wonderful about the look on the face of a young, enthusiastic physician as they learn something new. 

I’ve gotten to see that look a couple of times during this visit to Liberia. We have three new Liberian physicians working with us who have just completed their internships and are presently in a six month emergency obstetric and surgical skills training program. We call them our post-interns. They will spend three months with us and three more at another hospital. Then they will be deployed to a rural hospital post for a two year term of service.  This system is part of the tuition-free medical education program in Liberia.
 
A couple days ago I led a mini-training session about the management of bleeding after childbirth; this coming Tuesday I’ll be teaching them again on the use of insulin in diabetic emergencies.  Today they were getting some words of wisdom from our Medical Director Dr. Jerry Brown before starting rounds. 

If you know me, you know that training doctors is my passion. While much of what we do and know is contained in books and articles, there is a lot of personal experience and nuance that gets passed on from doctor to doctor, during rounds, “curbside” consultations, and case discussions. I am again moved and stimulated to continue to pray and trust God to help us establish a Family Medicine residency program here at ELWA. 

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