Barefoot Doctors

We had another good few days since the last update. We have been very busy getting organized, adjusted, and started with the course. We also have difficulty with our internet connection at times, which limits how much I can keep everyone updated.

Dr. David Brumwell joined us for a couple of days before his scheduled teaching time in a couple of weeks. He wanted to learn more about the students before he was scheduled to teach. He ended up helping us teach the last few days! It was a huge blessing to us to have someone else help do some of the teaching. Up until that point Dr. Nilson had done most of the teaching and I was doing more administrative tasks.

Dr. Dave did a great job and had some real life patients for demonstration as two of the students had tooth infections. It was a great teaching example for the class and they have been started on antibiotics. We may have a Barefoot Dr that completed training years ago come to extract the teeth if needed. Dr. David also taught about other things that cause a swollen neckand used me as an example. It is disappointing that no dentists are coming to teach this year but there is actually a lot we have been able to teach them and still more we can teach.

Another highlight is that we issued all the students a new book. The “Burmese Border Guidelines” will be the secondary text for the remainder of the course. It is much more technical than the original text we use but has some really good medical information.

Oh yes, Dr. Dave also thought it would be a good idea to run his own little medical experiment on how much an American stomach can handle of authentic Thai food. He ordered “young bamboo worms” for us all to eat at dinner! As you can see from the picture they are not the most appealing dish but actually quite good!

That is all for now.

Rick