As I am bumped along a rough rural road in South West Uganda between banana plantations in a 4 x 4 full of medical students, I wanted to pinch myself to make sure that I really was where I seemed to be. We were off to do a survey of rural people's views about malaria and its prevention. This is a prelude to local health workers marketing mosquito nets at cost, with an offer of credit for the less well off. Later students will return to monitor progress. Only a few weeks before, I had been external examiner for final year medical examinations in Ethiopia.
I know that some doctors approach retirement with anxiety. For so many of us the practice of medicine has been a way of life. I can now admit that being a doctor has in many ways defined who I am and stopping work could have been a kind of bereavement.
But I have much to be thankful for in the last two years since I retired from paediatrics and accepted the generosity of the Paymaster General. I worked part -time during my last year. This reduced my pension by 1% but I learned to organise my life in a different way. Looking back I can see that responding to earlier God-given opportunities also prepared me for my new way of life. Fifteen years ago I felt called to be a Methodist Local Preacher and now I am able to devote more time to this. On several occasions I had been able to spend short periods abroad. I followed up some premature babies in Jamaica and made a number of visits to Uganda, teaching medical students.
Friends with long experience of working abroad persuaded me that properly focussed short-term visits make a useful contribution to medical education in the tropics. I was already interested in the work of the Tropical Health and Education Trust (THET) founded by Professor Eldryd Parry, a member of the Christian Medical Fellowship's Council of Reference. The trust works with existing government health workers and enables them to meet their own goals. In this way local staff are better equipped to meet the health needs of their communities. The benefits of the projects are self -sustaining because THET supports the training of future health workers and continuing education for qualified staff.
THET has arranged my visits to Uganda and Ethiopia. The project I was visiting with the medical students in Uganda was part of their training in community health at Mbarara University. The trust also enables British clinicians to augment the clinical teaching on the wards and there is also a programme to expand the scope of nurse training. In Ethiopia support is given to two medical schools. In the northern university town of Gondar, I have been one of those helping local doctors to take specialist health care out to rural centres where patients are seen with diabetes, heart disease, epilepsy, and soon, disability. There are other programmes in Nigeria, Ghana and Malawi.
These travels have also been a spiritual journey. God has shown me new truth through African friends and I have been able to share this in pulpits in Leicester. I have learned that compared to ours, the experience of most people in East Africa is much closer to life in Biblical times. Just as the Israelites newly arrived in the Promised Land heard God say through Joshua '..choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve...' (Joshua 24:15), the options for those I meet in Africa are far more stark than in Britain. This is true for the dedicated students who lead their own Church of Uganda service that I attend in a lecture room at Mbarara University. In their prayers I hear them asking for the strength to serve God with integrity in a country where it is hard to be honest and to have a reasonable standard of living. The choices are hard too for committed Ethiopian Orthodox doctors that I have worked with in Gondar. They stay to serve local people full knowing that they would have far better facilities and a much more comfortable life style in the USA, Europe or even in the capital Addis Ababa.
If you are a retired doctor with some residual energy, God might call you to use some of your experience in supporting undergraduate and post-graduate medical education or some other project overseas. I have found students and qualified staff to be amazingly friendly, responsive and avid to develop their skills. And if your experience were to be like mine, you will receive far more in every way than you give.
I know that some doctors approach retirement with anxiety. For so many of us the practice of medicine has been a way of life. I can now admit that being a doctor has in many ways defined who I am and stopping work could have been a kind of bereavement.
But I have much to be thankful for in the last two years since I retired from paediatrics and accepted the generosity of the Paymaster General. I worked part -time during my last year. This reduced my pension by 1% but I learned to organise my life in a different way. Looking back I can see that responding to earlier God-given opportunities also prepared me for my new way of life. Fifteen years ago I felt called to be a Methodist Local Preacher and now I am able to devote more time to this. On several occasions I had been able to spend short periods abroad. I followed up some premature babies in Jamaica and made a number of visits to Uganda, teaching medical students.
Friends with long experience of working abroad persuaded me that properly focussed short-term visits make a useful contribution to medical education in the tropics. I was already interested in the work of the Tropical Health and Education Trust (THET) founded by Professor Eldryd Parry, a member of the Christian Medical Fellowship's Council of Reference. The trust works with existing government health workers and enables them to meet their own goals. In this way local staff are better equipped to meet the health needs of their communities. The benefits of the projects are self -sustaining because THET supports the training of future health workers and continuing education for qualified staff.
THET has arranged my visits to Uganda and Ethiopia. The project I was visiting with the medical students in Uganda was part of their training in community health at Mbarara University. The trust also enables British clinicians to augment the clinical teaching on the wards and there is also a programme to expand the scope of nurse training. In Ethiopia support is given to two medical schools. In the northern university town of Gondar, I have been one of those helping local doctors to take specialist health care out to rural centres where patients are seen with diabetes, heart disease, epilepsy, and soon, disability. There are other programmes in Nigeria, Ghana and Malawi.
These travels have also been a spiritual journey. God has shown me new truth through African friends and I have been able to share this in pulpits in Leicester. I have learned that compared to ours, the experience of most people in East Africa is much closer to life in Biblical times. Just as the Israelites newly arrived in the Promised Land heard God say through Joshua '..choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve...' (Joshua 24:15), the options for those I meet in Africa are far more stark than in Britain. This is true for the dedicated students who lead their own Church of Uganda service that I attend in a lecture room at Mbarara University. In their prayers I hear them asking for the strength to serve God with integrity in a country where it is hard to be honest and to have a reasonable standard of living. The choices are hard too for committed Ethiopian Orthodox doctors that I have worked with in Gondar. They stay to serve local people full knowing that they would have far better facilities and a much more comfortable life style in the USA, Europe or even in the capital Addis Ababa.
If you are a retired doctor with some residual energy, God might call you to use some of your experience in supporting undergraduate and post-graduate medical education or some other project overseas. I have found students and qualified staff to be amazingly friendly, responsive and avid to develop their skills. And if your experience were to be like mine, you will receive far more in every way than you give.
