Content Resources

If God has been nudging you about serving in missions, you have many questions: How do I know I’m called? How do I pick a mission agency? What training should I get? What about raising support? What is it like to raise your kids overseas? How can I avoid burnout? Using his experience and lots of stories, Dr. Stevens will answer these questions and others at this popular breakout session.

As a medical missionary
you will face many ethical challenges you never experienced during your training or practice in the
US. When should you do procedures that you are not trained to do? How do you justly allocate your limited resources of time, supplies, and equipment? What about bribes? Should you provide better access at a higher cost to those that can afford it? As a trained bio-ethicist and missionary, Dr. Stevens will share practical Biblical based principles to guide you on these and many other issues.

The Pan-African Academy
of Christian Surgeons is a general surgery residency for African national physicians. Founded in 1997, it presently is training 35 residents and has graduated 20 fully trained surgeons. The lessons learned and applicability to similar programs in Africa will be discussed.

Relatively uncommon
in N. America, tropical pyomyositis, acute and chronic osteomyelitis and septic arthritis are frequently encountered by medical missionaries in the developing world. Resources may be poor and specialists rare. This session is designed to give the nonspecialist medico a practical, case-oriented approach to these problems.

Abdominal pain in the tropics includes many of the same diseases as elsewhere but there are conditions that are unique. Using a case-based approach, some of the more common of the conditions that cause acute abdominal pain will be discussed. Approaches to diagnosis and treatment, especially those that are not obvious to the practitioner from N. America, will be discussed in an interactive style.

Refugees and OVCs (Orphan and Vulnerable Children) have common health problems
as extremely disadvantaged people, living through traumatic situations with limited resources. Using case presentations and
an interactive format, this workshop will explore Refugee and OVC care and treatment issues particularly from the speaker’s experience in Africa, Asia, and South America.

This session will discuss
how globalization is affecting medical education worldwide. We will discuss some of the requirements for, barriers,
to, and problems for the globalization of medical education to make a difference in developing countries. We will then discuss why there
is such a desperate need for medical education to build healthcare capacity, and will present examples of groups and individuals who have
used medical education to make a difference and as
an evangelistic opportunity. Participants will be challenged to consider both long- and/
or short-term opportunities to make a difference in medical care in developing countries by presenting opportunities and discussing the rewards now and for eternity.

To have an impact in a world of unprecedented suffering, Christian counseling approaches need to be holistic, systemic, indigenous, and collaborative according to the Cape Town Declaration crafted by an international team at the 2010 Lausanne Congress. In this session, these four dimensions of the Declaration will be explained and illustrated with case examples from around the world.

This session will discuss
how globalization is affecting medical education worldwide. We will discuss some of the requirements for, barriers,
to, and problems for the globalization of medical education to make a difference in developing countries. We will then discuss why there
is such a desperate need for medical education to build healthcare capacity, and will present examples of groups and individuals who have
used medical education to make a difference and as
an evangelistic opportunity. Participants will be challenged to consider both long- and/
or short-term opportunities to make a difference in medical care in developing countries by presenting opportunities and discussing the rewards now and for eternity.

Unhealthy dependency develops when we do for others what they can and should do for themselves. This seminar looks at how
the dependency syndrome develops in cross-cultural ministry and how it can be either avoided or overcome. Stories will be told about mission-established
churches which avoided the problem from the beginning and how others overcame
it and can now stand on
their own two feet. Some attention will be paid to
how short-term missions
can avoid contributing to
the dependency syndrome. Time will also be given to discussing the implications
of sustainability in Christian medical institutions among mission-established churches.