Surgery and Healing in the Developing World - Dartmouth-Hitchcock

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36 Surgery and Healing in the Developing World
Figure 1. The expatriate surgeon’s credo: “Have text, will operate”.
Doug: What is a medical mission?
Dad:
A medical mission, for my purposes, describes a term of work in medicine/surgery
in a Third World context. It may take various forms, and on this point it is
most helpful to define one’s objective. Is the desire to cover a practice for a time? Is
it to teach? Is it to lecture at conferences? Is it to assist with resident training programs
for nationals? Is it to meet an urgent need, as recently occurred in the Balkans?
My objective has been to train general surgeons to perform urologic procedures
appropriate to their situation. Of obvious and great benefit, Mom concomitantly
teaches urologic nursing skills to the operating room, ward and outpatient personnel.
Additionally, I participate eagerly in didactic teaching programs for all healthcare
workers. For instance, it has been my privilege to serve on the faculty of the annual
Christian Medical & Dental Society’s (CMDS) Continuing Medical Education
Conference, one year in Kenya, the next in Malaysia.
Further, I have worked with the fledgling Pan-African College of Christian Surgeons
(PACCS), as it seeks to legitimize and create standards of performance for
national residency programs throughout Africa. I fully agree with its overseers that
the window of opportunity to participate in the training of national surgeons on
that continent appears quite short. Sadly, medical graduates in Third World nations
often are encouraged to travel to the West for higher qualifications at considerable
cost. But the experience gained abroad is often of little relevance to and impractical