Residency Training Programs at Mission Hospitals: Obstacles, Challenges, and Blessings

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Is it possible to do true academic style residency training at mission hospitals in developing countries? Does the lack of resources and scarcity of mentors result in inferior training and therefore inadequately trained graduates? What governmental or regulatory bodies are involved in non-university based training programs in the developing world? Do short term visiting faculty really make a difference? How can spiritual discipleship be woven into medical and surgical residency training? During this breakout session, Dr. Carol Spears (missionary surgeon and Assistant Program Director at Tenwek Hospital in Kenya) and Dr. Agneta Odera (Kenyan physician in her third year of General Surgery Residency Training at Tenwek) will share their experiences in starting and developing a General Surgery Training Program in partnership with the Pan African Academy of Christian Surgeons. They will share their own stories of challenges, mistakes, areas of ongoing deficiency, as well as helpful hints, blessings, and personal stories. The goal of this session is to provide a minimal set of requirements needed for a successful residency training program and to provide information on resources available to assist new programs. The approach of training others to then go and train others models the example Jesus established in his ministry on earth.

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