Our first week back has gone by fast. We have been busy with clinics starting up, getting ABC kids their checkups and working on community education strategies. Thurdsay was a long day at central clinic and it ended up being one of those days with "just one more patient". Our last two patients were actually pretty serious--one with a suspicious eye lesion (probably cancerous) and a little girl from church with neumonia. Friday we saw 84 people in Paxot II for general medical and dental consult and ABC clinic. We were pretty tired after that and were hoping for a low key Saturday pap smear clinic--and it was.
Sheri is beginning our education program that will focus on getting our full-time staff, our volunteers and eventually patient groups well informed on various health topics. We kicked around schedules and class ideas today after pap smear clinic and we can see our education program is finally starting to take form. We see a lot of diabetes in this area, with some community clinics attending mostly diabetics. So our goal is to get some diabetes education classes started in some of our high-incidence towns. This is crucial in an area where there is little access to health infomation via Prevention or Reader's Digest or T.V. or internet. Trying to explain a reduced-carbohydrate diet to someone who doesn't know what proteins and carbohyrates and fats are, is a challenge. But people impress us all the time with their desire to understand their illnesses and be healthier.
We also have goals to get the mothers of the cleft lip and palate babies together and to start prenatal classes for education and bible study. The opportunities are plentiful as we look for ways to get women's groups organized and informed on their families' health and spiritual well-being. Being women in the medical profession has its advantages for sure, and we are thankful that God is using us in his kingdom.
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