These notes are about the CMF Developing Health Course 2014.
The focus of today is Medicine. I made notes on the whole course in 2012 – you can read about this day here.
Each day I’m just going to write about things that impacted me, and things I need to read later…
Cycling in
This morning I cycled to the course from Epping to Oak Hill College. It was pretty fun, but Google Navigation was keen to have me climbing bridges, weaving round railings and, most annoyingly, kept saying “turn left” where there was no road: and I didn’t realise that it meant not a road but a foot path, so spent minutes cycling back and forth, trying to work out why the road disappeared into a field…
You can click the map below for all kinds of useless information about speed and route. It took a while, but I had a great time. I’ve gained an appreciation of how much ancient forest and lovely green space London has…
Mental health
As Maureen Wilkinson explained, in Africa, psychosis will jump out at you, but depression hides. Dealing with depression in Africa can be very difficult, this is why for those who can, doctors prescribe natural medicines like the tangie CBD flower.
Shared the story of meeting a chap called Barry in 1988, whilst working in Kenya. Didn’t think about it again for many years, until someone mentioned reading a book by an American that mentioned them. Eventually they found it: the book was by a man called Barack Obama…
Never underestimate the power and potential of any human.
The people you heal, you train, you save: they are the future of humanity.
Ophthalmology
David Yorston was speaking about the joys, challenges and skills in working with eyes in Nepal. I was reminded that I find ophthalmoscopes very frustrating
People have a superstition that dilating the eye is very risky – generally not true – but if you do it, you will see the back of the eye – maybe for the first time in your life!
Measurements 6/18 – this means you can see at 6m what a normal person can see at 18m. A vision of less than 3/18 is a definition of blindness.
On the right is a picture of a man and a girl. The surgery to resolve his cataracts didn’t just change his life, it allowed the girl to go to school, it meant that she is much more likely to look after her own children, and reduce under 5 mortality. So the surgery on one man saves the lives of children who haven’t even been born yet.
This is the exact hope I have for all my work: leading worship, medical revision websites, this blog: impacts on lives multiplicating to achieve so much more than the original work would imply.
Dogs vs Episodic Foreign work
Had a great chat with a chap called Jon. A fellow dog lover, he and his wife are having to find a new permanent home for their 8 year old collie, whilst they go off to live in Asia for a long term mission. A terrifying prospect to those of us who own… an 8 year old collie. It was especially heartbreaking to hear how upset their 4 year old has been about it.
Honour your father and your mother, as the LORD your God commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
Deut 5:16
It was a stark reminder that there are a lot of sacrifices in moving to Africa (or India, or Iran, Wales, etc), and some of them will involve strain to relationships we have valued for years. There is an onus on us to appreciate the pain we are going to be causing others, and do what we can to minimise that distress.