Hello again, folks! Booting up my
blog again, I would like to take this opportunity to tell you of my third class
from Equip Inc. - MMI or (Missionary Medicine Intensive). http://www.equipinternational.com/training-courses/missionary-medicine-intensive.htm
This is Equip’s main class and
reservations must be made almost 6 months in advance. People come from all over the world to take
this class, having learned about its reputation from either the internet or
from personal referral. The class is two weeks long and intensive is the operative word. It has
been called the hardest class ever taken by those in the nursing program... and
yet here is layman Greene. I want to say what an awesome job the instructors
did. Yes, it was hard, and it should be. Even for a person with limited
education the bases have been covered and I feel confident in standard
practices. I would be careful to admit I am aware of my painfully obvious limitations;
mainly I am not a doctor or a nurse. I shall not practice medicine anywhere,
but when and where it is appropriate for the situation. "But now I know
and knowing is half the battle." I took this class to be prepared to help
when and where there is no doctor. If nothing else, I can help out in a clinic
and I have a good base of what to do in some rather specific tropical medicine
environments. Third world medicine is
more closely related to pre-1960's medicine in its approach. First, observe and
take vitals, record abnormalities, and determine treatment based off a database
of knowledge. This is specifically different from today’s medicine approach which
involves expensive equipment and lab tests.
Let me tell you what the schedule looked like.
7:00am - wake up and eat breakfast
8:00am - chapel with old-fashioned
hymns (my favorite!) and a devotional by Equip’s founder Rev. Barrie Flitcroft.
(always exceptional!)
Next in is class - usually a lecture and a
PowerPoint, followed by hands on experience and practice, practice, practice.
Then after dinner we work on our
case studies till around 10:00pm. The case studies are notes from our class
creator and manual maker Dr. Mary Vanderkooi, which have been personal cases
for the most part from Dr Vanderkooi's missionary experiences. She records the
full body examination of her patient, a urinalysis and some indicative yes or
no questioning. Based on this given data we must use the manual to diagnose and
treat the patient correctly the first time for 40-50 case studies ranging from
Strep Thought and Tonsillitis to Measles and Hemorrhagic Fevers. This was quite emotionally exciting for me. I
felt as if I was actually doing something, and I became obsessed with getting
the diagnosis right first time every time. It can be crushing when it is
measles and not chickenpox.
Let me lay out for you some of what I studied:
Dr. Mary’s extremely brilliant book
set
How to do a complete patient
assessment and evaluation
Infection, immunization and
sanitation
Buy and use medicines
Drug math (extremely important)
Emergency medicine
Malnutrition (the most heart breaking chapter)
Rehydration (often the main cause of death in common
tropical diseases)
Periods and pregnancies
Childbirth (and new respects for mothers)
Pain relief, sedation and muscle
relaxation
Soft tissue injuries
Lacerations
Bone and joint injuries
Splint making and spinal injury
protection
Burn care and skin grafts
Using field tests
Principles of dentistry and so
much, much more
Dr. Mary’s books (Village
Medical Manual, 6th edition) are two volumes. Volume I covers policies
and procedures; covering the bulk of what to do and how to do it, as well, it
is chockfull of graphs and information on things like… how to tell a child’s
age from signs, normal vital signs and how to make tools from what you have on
hand. The largest book, Volume II, is Diagnosis and Treatments. This is a step
by step walk through looking first at symptom protocols. Here you may look up -
say… itching red bumps, or wheezing in the lungs, bloody vomit and total body
seizures out of a full body system breakdown and a breakdown of all the most
common problems that can occur in that system and location. The next index is
for Disease. Dr. Mary has had years of
field work with numerous tropical ailments and knows what they can look like
and manifest as in different regions and races of humanity. You reach this
index from the symptoms protocols which for your specific ailment(s) have
indicated. This often takes time to look into more than one disease or
syndrome. The more time spent and knowledge gleaned the better. This also lists
the best, the second, and third best drugs commonly used to treat or fight this
disease. The next index is a diagnosis protocol which checks certain disease
patterns across others, narrowing down the likelihood of your diagnosis. Then
you have regional notes that tell of the likelihood or impossibility of an
ailment due to your location.
As usual you learn as much from the fellow missionaries as
you do from the actual course. This time we had a nurse from Down Under, and a
missionary from Germany, as well as, a Mennonite, a Samaritan’s Purse doctor
who works in Haiti, and other notable Christ-centered individuals.
Look to hear from me again soon.
1 Peter 13-16
*Therefore, with minds
that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you
when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. As obedient children, do not
conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as He
who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy,
because I am holy.”*
In Christ,
David Greene
