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.

Dental Surgery can be particularly challenging on the mission field. Often dealing with cross cultural and language communication problems, the proper positioning of the patient, proper light, possibly no x-rays, limited or no suction, sometimes limited trained assistance, and possibly not all the equipment that you might need. Many dentists do only limited oral surgery in their practices. The challenges are great in the often uncomfortable environment of the mission field. How can we be prepared and what are some of the techniques that we can use that might be of help for us as we care for those who often have never seen a dentist before and are in pain or have been. Relieving pain and infection and doing no harm is one of our most pressing issues in areas where there is no dental care available. It is a matter of getting our of your comfort zone and working in a small dark area, in which you could injure your self as well and where the incidence of HIV may be quite high. Lets look at some way to work in and through these difficulties for the glory of the Lord and the benefit of those who need to know Jesus and seek relief from their suffering. May His great love and compassion show in all we do and say. To God be the glory.

The global epidemic of HIV/AIDS presents enormous challenges to the family, community, church, and health care workers. Equipping one another to prevent HIV transmission, reducing stigma and risky sexual behaviors and supporting all levels of the family and community to provide care is a calling for Christian nurses. This session will explore the realities of responding to that call across many nations and bring case studies from remote Papua, Indonesia as well as people-packed India. Best global practice in HIV interventions at the family, community, and clinic level is reviewed with careful Biblical thought and mandate. Discussion will stimulate consideration of your own life choices in light of this global opportunity to give life in it's fullest to many across our world. Themes and technical areas covered will include caring in the context of minimal resources, the biblical basis for caring about the AIDS crisis, understanding best practice in prevention, care, and support, and effective communication across cultures in health knowledge and care.

This session will provide a brief introduction to the Islamic faith, culture, and worldview of health and illness. Particular emphasis will be given to obstetrical and women’s health issues encountered among an unreached people of a Southwest Asian country where the speaker, a Family Nurse Practitioner, is presently involved in ministry. Equipped with a general knowledge about the culture of Islam and the Islamic worldview of health and illness, health care providers are better prepared to interact with their Muslim clients and their families and will be able to provide care that is accepted by the client. This in turn can lead to a decrease in the amount of racial and ethnic disparities that occur in health care in our society today.

Review of the literature about burnout in overseas workers will include general demographics, incidence, prevalence, risk factors, and primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention interventions in a bio/psycho/social/spiritual model

This session will focus on positioning, interventions and education needed for optimizing the care for non-ambulatory patients. Specific education will be given on serial casting, seating evaluations, and basic interventions to improve quality of life.

Recent research in the long term effects of retaining versus removing third molars has been extensive and has had some surprising results. This session will review the development of third molars, associated pathology, indications for their removal and treatment with a focus on their management in resource limited situations.

Medical missions are often challenging because of cross-cultural exposure to unfamiliar diseases in settings with limited diagnostic resources. Common tropical illnesses are generally unfamiliar to US trained providers. This session will present real cases from Africa and Asia focusing on tropical skin diseases, HIV, diarrhea, fever and malnutrition. History and visual clues along with simple lab and x-rays will guide our discussions and help you be better prepared. Cases will be of interest to those with medical training or those serving in an area without easy access to medical care. Come and enjoy the game.

Many Non-Surgeons are called upon to manage trauma or minor surgical procedures in the ER or clinic. This is particularly true in the developing world. Accurate suturing skills are an important part of wound closure and management which can be performed very well with a little training in good technique. This session will include a discussion of:• the basics of wound healing• correct knot tying methods• wound closure with a variety of Suturing techniques• common pitfalls• practical tips on improving your technique• guidelines for choosing the correct suture and needle

In many countries there are large numbers of blind people whose sight could be restored with a low cost effective surgery. Many other could have avoided going blind if their problem had been recognized early and prevented. In this session we will discuss why many of these people may never get the eye surgery they need and how effective community eye care can change this situation in much of the developing world. We will discuss: • major causes of avoidable blindness • approaches to the community that work well• technology that is appropriate for effective low cost and high volume eye surgery• the case for static vs. mobile eye care units• how to set priorities on a low cost eye care budget• integrating spiritual care with eye care in the community

It is estimated that 3-10% of people in the developing world are disabled. The care of disabled children in Sub Saharan Africa is nearly nonexistent. Africa lacks sufficient specialists to provide reasonable care for the vast majority of disabled children, and very few training programs are training such specialists in Africa. A remedial solution for surgical care is necessary in order to provide for this need. Selected doctors with surgical skills might be trained to provide 10-15 surgical procedures thereby providing care for possibly 80-85% of the surgical needs of the disabled. I am a general surgeon who began providing surgical care for the disabled thirty years ago. The care expanded to include children with polio, club feet, burn contractures, club feet, hypospadias, hydrocephalus, spina bifida, and various other disabilities.

Nearly all global under-five mortality (U5M) (99%) occurs in developing countries. The leading causes of U5M worldwide, pneumonia and diarrheal illness, account for 1.396 and 0.801 million annual deaths, respectively. While important advances in prevention are being made, advanced life support (ALS) management in children in the developing world is often incomplete due to limited resources. Existing ALS management guidelines for children in LR settings are largely empirical not evidence-based, written for the hospital setting, not standardized with a systematic approach to patient assessment and categorization of illness, and taught in current pediatric ALS training courses from the perspective of full-resource settings. Extending higher quality emergency and critical care services to children in the developing world is the focus of this session. Simple inexpensive ALS management when integrated into existing programs of primary care can improve child survival across the globe.