Developing Health Course 2010 – part II

Two more full days of the course – mosquitoes, worms, and other hazardous parasites yesterday and HIV and palliative care today. There is a bit of time at the end of the day to enjoy that rare event, the English summer evening, and Albert from Malawi has played his first game of croquet – ‘Give me another couple of goes at this and I’ll be dangerous!’

The amazing Gisela Schneider gave expert teaching on HIV today and this evening talked on ‘What is medical mission?’ She spoke about her experience as a missionary doctor in West Africa where she worked for 20 years before moving into HIV work in Uganda. When she first arrived in the Gambia, she was the only doctor for 150,000 people. She ran a mission hospital, doing all the caesarians, night calls, clinics and the rest. When she had been there for 4 years, the director of her mission came for a visit. She showed him the hospital and all the patients…. and he said ‘So when do you do your mission work?’

Too tired to write more now – it’s exhausting running the course – so I’ll tell you what her answer was tomorrow.

Posted by Vicky Lavy