Today we had the final exam for this year! Just look at the concentration on the student’s faces. We also handed out course evaluations for the students to grade and give input on how we did. We will find out the results tomorrow.
In the afternoon we had our final guest teacher, Dr. Trevor Smith. He is an Australian born doctor who has lived in Chiang Mai about 35 yrs. He is one of the leading experts on Leprosy. 10 yrs ago he was seeing 200 new cases of leprosy in Thailand every year. This last year he saw 15 new cases in all of Thailand.
Now Burma is a different story. Burma is considered one of the active leprosy areas although no one can get accurate figures out of that country. We
polled our students using the Audience Response System (this is kind of like voting on American idol) and found out instantly that about half of the students have someone with leprosy in their area. Two of the students said they know of new leprosy patients in this last year! These numbers are disconcerting because leprosy is a contagious disease, but it is also totally curable if you catch it early. This is one of those diseases that should not still be a problem anywhere in the world today. Fortunately Leprosy does not effect everyone but the people most at risk are those who are unhealthy or malnourished to begin with. So in countries where health conditions are poor it can be a bigger problem. Now that the Barefoot Doctor students know how to identify and treat it if necessary, there is new hope for those who are otherwise unreachable.
Tomorrow is our last day of teaching! Pray that it goes well and we get every thing completed that needs to be done.
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