PAACS Bulletin

 

Dear Colleagues:

 

The world seems to be falling apart, and there is little most of us can do about it.  At least it seems that way.  This bulletin, however, is not about a world that is falling apart but about something special that God is doing through surgical education. You will be encouraged as you read a new resident's dramatic story of how he found God in the midst of false religions, suffering, and disillusionment.  You will be heartened by the success our residents who passed COSECSA's the second year exam, about an award for academic excellence given to a member of PAACS's Advisory Board, and about of missionary aviation services linking up with training hospitals.  Finally, you will learn about opportunities to serve and to support the PAACS ministry in ways that are strategic for the Kingdom, and that can become a blessing to you personally.  Read and pray, and if God makes it possible, come visit us in Louisville, KY for the complimentary "Friends of PAACS Dinner" on November 12.

 

Sincerely, in Christ

David C. Thompson, MD

Editor

www.paacs.net

 

BULLETIN # 66 - October 2009

 

Bringing Christians together from around the world to train and disciple African surgeons in Africa.
Our goal: To train and disciple 100 African surgeons by 2020.

 

---

COSECSA EXAMS

Great news!  ALL of the PAACS Residents in Ethiopia and Kenya who sat for the written MCS exams for COSECSA passed!  The examination is given after the second year of residency. At press time, we had not heard yet about the residents at Kijabe.  Here is a list of those whose success we are celebrating at the time this goes to press:

• From Tenwek Hospital: Dr. Gerald Angira and Dr. Agneta Odera
• From Soddo Christian Hospital: Dr. Arega Fekadu, Dr. Igoghwo Etuh, Dr. Tewodros Tamiru, Dr. Haileyesus Tesfaye and Dr. Solomon Endrias

 

Congratulations to all of you for a job wonderfully done!  May the Lord help you succeed as well when you take your orals in Rwanda in December, and may the knowledge you acquire as you study help the sick find healing, and cause them to glorify Jesus, the Messiah.

 

 

INTRODUCING ANTHONY NESOAH

In our next few Bulletins, we will be introducing the newest residents to PAACS.  Dr. Anthony Nesoah began his residency at Ngaoundéré Christian Hospital in September of this year.  Here is his story.

 

Nesoah was born in Cameroon to unmarried parents who left him with his grandmother, a subsistence palm oil farmer.  He was raised as a nominal Catholic until secondary school when his family sent him to Nigeria.  Despite his poverty, he managed to get into university to study medicine. While there he got involved in Leninist-Marxist ideology, converted to Islam, joined the Rosicrucian movement and rose to a high rank.  After finishing medical school and a year of internship, he met a Christian pediatric surgeon from Germany who befriended him and showed him extraordinary kindness by inviting him to live and eat with him.  This caused Nesoah to think deeply about the Christian faith.  He eventually went to work at a hospital run by a Dutch NGO that cared for children with cancrum oris, a gangrenous lesion of the mouth and face associated with severe malnutrition.  All the children were from Muslim homes.  Nesoah learned to perform reconstructive surgery on these severely deformed children.  However, the suffering he saw made him bitter against God. 

 

One day, a group of Christians came to his hospital to pass out clothing and food.  An older man in the group struck up a conversation with Nesoah and challenged him to consider the claims of Christ.  Over the next month, he came back and talked with him often, until he led him to faith in Christ.  Suddenly, the old things passed away, and all things became new.  He broke all his ties to Islam and to his Rosicrucian organization, and was baptized into the local Adventist Church.  For the first time in his life, his heart was peaceful. 

 

Soon after, Nesoah left Nigeria and returned to Cameroon to serve among the poor as a physician at a Presbyterian Hospital and proclaim to the unreached the good news of Jesus Christ.  That is when he heard about PAACS and applied to become a resident.  Nesoah and his wife Joy have been married for three years and are both now at Ngaoundéré.

 

EDUCATOR AWARD

Dr. John Mellinger, a member of the PAACS Advisory Council and the Director of the general surgery residency program at the Medical College of Georgia (US), was awarded the CMDA Educator of the Year award at the Annual Meeting held September 24-27 in Ridgecrest, NC.   Mellinger is the academic dean for the CMDA Continuing Medical and Dental Education conferences, the next of which will be held at Brackenhurst, Kenya, in February, 2010.  Mellinger also holds positions and offices in several prestigious national groups in the U.S. that are involved in surgical education.

 

We congratulate Professor Mellinger and are honored that he is part of the PAACS family!

 

 

FOR THE ADVENTUROUS—PAACS VISION TRIPS!

Bruce Steffes is inviting those who want to see the PAACS training hospitals first-hand to a vision trip in East Africa.  The trip in West African is already full, but there is room for four more travelers for East Africa.  The trip to East Africa will depart the US on February 17, 2009, include visits to Soddo Christian Hospital in Ethiopia and Kijabe and Tenwek Hospitals in Kenya (and the obligatory short safari), and return to the U.S. on February 28, 2010.  For those of you already registered for the West African trip, you will be leaving the U.S. on February 28, visiting two hospitals in Cameroon and one in Gabon, and returning on March 11, 2010.  For more details, including the cost of the trip, contact Bruce Steffes at ceo@paacs.net.   Time is running out so let him know soon!

 

FRIENDS OF PAACS DINNER & UROLOGY TASK FORCE MEETING

Thanks to a generous donor, the “Friends of PAACS Dinner” will now be free!  The dinner is scheduled to be held Thursday evening, November 12 at the Celebration Hall at the First Baptist Church of Middletown, the same location we enjoyed last year.  The dinner and program are scheduled from 6:30 to 10:00 p.m.  If you’d like to attend, please contact Gerald Swim at Gerald.swim@paacs.net so he can reserve you a place.  Please encourage medical students and residents interested in surgery and missions to come along with you.

 

The PAACS Urology Task Force has scheduled a meeting for Friday, November 13, 2009, in conjunction with the Global Missions Conference in Louisville, KY – www.medicalmissions.org.   The Task Force will meet in Room WC 246 from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.  If you will be able to attend, please let Gerald Swim (gerald.swim@paacs.net) know and cc to Sam Thompson, M.D (stthomp627@aol.com).

 

 

 

 

NEW PROGRAM DIRECTOR NAMED FOR SODDO

Paul Gray, a general surgeon who has served with distinction at Soddo Christian Hospital for the past year as the Assistant Program Director, has been named by PAACS as the new Program Director.  Duane Anderson, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon, graciously accepted the job four years ago to enable the program to remain open until a general surgeon could be found.  It is with a sense of profound gratitude to Duane Anderson that PAACS now transfers this heavy responsibility off of his shoulders and onto Paul Gray’s young shoulders.  Duane will continue to promote the PAACS program at Soddo as the Assistant Program Director as well as serving as the hospital’s orthopedic surgeon and medical director of the hospital.

 

A NEED FOR NEW 9TH EDITION SCHWARTZ TEXTBOOKS

If you are a fan of missionary aviation, we are happy to report that Bongolo Hospital, in Gabon, and Soddo Christian Hospital in Ethiopia are partnering with aviation ministries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Steve Straw, the lead pilot and Director of “Aviation Medicale de Bongolo,” will start flying visiting surgeons, patients, and hospital staff in mid-November.  AMB’s service will cut the travel time from Libreville to Bongolo from 9 hours to just 90 minutes, and will carry up to seven passengers. 

 

Duane Anderson is an orthopedic surgeon and has served as the PAACS Program Director at Soddo for the past few years.  His wife Jackie writes about the day last month when the helicopter landed at Soddo Christian Hospital:

 

“My Saturday started out pretty normal as I quickly washed clothes, since we had electric power for the day. My friends from my small group Bible study had made plans to visit Sarah, a chaplain at our hospital, for the traditional welcoming of a new baby. This is a formal visit with giving of gifts and enjoying coffee with a special porridge.  Then I had a phone call that Markus Lehman from Helimission was planning to land his helicopter at the hospital in the late morning. 

 

The dirt roads were slippery from last night’s heavy rain.  Sarah is a good friend, and her baby Abigail is now two months old. She and her husband greeted us at the door with kisses and hugs.  More ladies arrived until seven of us had crowded into the 10 x 10 room. Just like American women, we oohed and ahhed over the sweet brown eyed girl and passed her around. After coffee, bread, and peanuts, I shared thoughts on a psalm and then prayed.

 

The helicopter had landed on the open soccer field in the middle of the hospital compound. Duane was giving a tour of the buildings to the pilot Markus, Michael, his fellow missionary, and Darren, deputy country director of Samaritan’s Purse.  Thousands of Ethiopians were pushing on the hospital fence for a look. Many employees formed a ring in the field.

 

MEMORIAL CHRISTIAN HOSPITAL RECEIVES A MILLION DOLLAR GIFT FOR CONSTRUCTION

The Memorial Christian Hospital (MCH) facility originated 40 years ago in Malumghat, Bangladesh, having been originally constructed in 1964-66. The hospital has been an evangelism outreach tool and the way that God has been reaching the people of Bangladesh. The facility now is a 66-bed hospital and outpatient clinic, including all related necessary medical services. The entire compound is located on a 44-acre tract of land situated on the Bay of Bengal. The compound is comprised of numerous associated facilities, such as administration buildings, schools, missionary & national housing, guest housing, maintenance buildings, and other related operational buildings. The new renewal project consists of the construction of a new clinic and hospital buildings to replace the existing hospital facility in a multi-phased construction project. This past summer, Steve Kelley was able to visit Samaritan’s Purse/World Medical Mission in Boone, NC. During that visit, they affirmed their desire to give an additional $900,000 along with their previous gift of $100,000. This generous contribution plus others’ sacrificial gifts brings the fund‐raising to 94%!  Construction is slated to begin in late 2009 to early 2010.

 

WE NEED YOUR HELP

We are going to commit the next 13 months to the conversion of PAACs from a virtual organization to one with a more solid basis.  We need your help in helping to raise the awareness and recognition of PAACS and to share the wonderful opportunity to join God in what He is doing.  We need your help in doing three things:

1. Letting students, residents and trained surgeons know about this opportunity to make a difference in the world.   We have brochures that you might share with them.  Let us know if you need them.  Be sure to invite them to the Friends of PAACS dinner – and consider paying their way to the conference.
2. Identifying places that we (or you) may speak on the behalf of PAACS – churches, CMDA chapters, Grand Rounds, etc. We can help you with the presentation and the materials you need to hand out.
3. Identifying people, churches and foundations that might be able to help us financially in a significant way.  They should be known to you personally and we need to count on your ability to introduce us to the right people.

        If you can help us, or we can help you help us, please contact either Ervin Barham at ervin.barham @paacs.net or Bruce Steffes at ceo@paacs.net.   The PAACS phone number is (910) 286-8853.

 

PRAYER REQUESTS

1. In addition to all the items above for which we praise God, we add that our registration (as CMDA) finally in Kenya finally came through!
2. Pray for the PAACS Commission as it meets in Louisville, KY, from November 11-12, and that God will give clear direction to the members. Pray that the “Friends of PAACS” Dinner will be well-attended, stimulate interest, and ignite passion for the mission of PAACS.  Pray that there will be a great number of students and surgical residents who are open to God’s calling on their lives.
3. Pray that God would call surgeons to serve with PAACS at Mbingo, Kijabe, and Banso Hospitals, and that those He calls will respond. This is a critical need.  Pray that you will be open to His leading.
4. Pray that God will give Paul Gray much wisdom as he returns with his family from the U.S. and moves into his new role as the Program Director at Soddo Christian Hospital.
5. Pray that God will help the residents who passed the written MCS exam and that they will prepare well for COSECSA’s oral exam in December.
6. Pray for new resident Anthony Nesoah and his wife Joy, and they settle into a busy schedule and new roles at Ngaoundéré Protestant Hospital.  Pray that they will both grow in their faith, and that Nesoah will be able to advance in surgical knowledge.  Emmanuel Nefenda has also given notice that he will start at Ngaoundéré November 1st.   Please pray as well for his transition.
7. Pray for the Kijabe and Tenwek programs as they select new residents to start in January, 2010.
8. Pray that God will provide the funds that Kijabe and Soddo need to build housing for new PAACS residents.
9. Pray that God will go ahead and allow us to finally complete the Memorandum of Agreement with the College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa.  We hope that this may happen at the next College Meeting in Kigali, Rwanda in early December.
10. Pray that the final approval be granted and arrangements will be finalized for the first two residents taking a rotation in Pietermaritzburg, S. Africa.  It is to start in January 2010 and each rotation will be six months long.
11. Please continue to pray for government recognition of PAACS in Ethiopia, Gabon and Cameroon.
12. Pray that God will provide additional, long-term PAACS faculty surgeons for Mbingo Baptist Hospital and Kijabe Hospital.
13. Pray that God will provide other long-term missionary surgeons and the financial resources to enable us to open additional training programs.
14. Pray that God will continue to provide the funds we need to train our 34 residents and support seven residency programs in Africa and Asia.

 

Editors:  David C. Thompson, MD, FACS, FWACS

              Bruce Steffes, MD, MBA, FACS, FWACS, FCS(ECA)