A seminar exploring questions in medical missions…

This workshop will bring together scientific and biblical principles of health and agriculture, cross-cultural methods of communication, and skills in establishing relationships that facilitate behavioral changes for the improvement of health, nutrition, and care for the environment.

First session: July 3-August 29 2012, or part there of depending on the needs of the student. Other dates to be offered in the future. Apply Here

Typical day: Half day spent in discussion-style seminars, half day in community health outreach.

Faculty: Dan Fountain MD, Ty Hopkins MD, others TBA

Course Objectives:

• Discuss basic principles of community health.
• Identify obstacles to changing health-related behavior.
• Describe the dynamics of culture and how cultures function.
• List cultural values that favor progress and health and others that impede them.
• List and describe biblical and cultural foundations for community health.
• Describe principles and practical applications of cross-cultural communication.
• Outline worldview assumptions and values of traditional, Islamic and Western cultures.
• Describe principles and methods of participatory non-formal adult education.
• List principles of planning, organizing, and financing health programs.
• Describe principles of motivating and empowering community leaders in health and development activities.
• Describe the process of decentralizing primary health care to make it accessible to everyone.
• Describe the organization of pre-school , antenatal, and family health consultations, the enlarged program of vaccinations, and nutrition services
• Describe effective no-cost methods of restoring soil fertility and restoration of forests.

Cost: $3100 inclusive of: tuition, group airfare, ground transportation, food and housing.  This is subject to increase after April 1st if airfare increases.  This does not include cost of visas for Kenya and Tanzania, which are $50 and $100 respectively and need to be paid on arrival in country.

Location/Facility: This seminar will take place in Ntagatcha, Tanzania, 45 miles east of Lake Victoria, near the Kenyan border. This small, rural village is rich in natural resources but poorly developed. Before City of Hope, education and healthcare were the worst in Tanzania, and to date, there is no electricity, poor sanitation and poor roads. City of hope has built a school and a small hospital which are already raising the standard of education and healthcare.

Students will stay in simple but comfortable dorm style housing and meals will be shared as a community.

Apply Here

Contact/questions: tyhopkins@gmail.com

Faculty Bios

Dan Fountain, MD, MPH

Dr. Dan Fountain spent 35 years as a medical missionary in the Vanga Hospital in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then Zaire). In partnership with the Congolese healthcare staff, he helped develop a comprehensive health service consisting of a 400 bed multi-specialty training hospital, training programs for diploma and auxiliary paramedical personnel, a rural health zone with a decentralized network of 50 rural health centers bringing primary health care to 250,000 people in 300 communities, community health initiatives throughout the health zone, a family medicine residency training program, and a wholistic  approach to caring for the whole person with special adaptations for caring for persons with HIV/AIDS.

Since 1996, Dr. Fountain has taught whole person care and community health in various countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He facilitates workshops to train health professionals serving the poor domestically and internationally. He is on the overseas faculty of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations, and on the board of Project MedSend. He has written several books in French and English for primary health care personnel, and books on the biblical basis for health and healing.

Ty Hopkins, MD

Dr. Ty Hopkins has been training and mentoring future medical missionaries since completing his residency in Family Practice at Eastern Maine Medical Center in 2003. After residency he volunteered full time as medical director for organizations working in various mission fields including prisons, disaster relief, academia, families in crisis, and several locations in Latin America and Africa. He is currently the medical director at City of Hope doing wholistic transformational development in Tanzania. Dr. Hopkins is passionate about integrating a biblical understanding of health and personhood with medicine and is mentoring medical students through the Christian Medical and Dental Association. He is on the faculty of the Via College of Osteopathic Medicine and Campbell University where he directs clinical preceptorships in global health as well as lectures on ethics, medical humanities, and cross cultural healthcare ministry. He is married and has two children.

TCOH volunteer Michael Thornton  created this short video to show what the life of the children is like. We would also like to thank him for the many photos he took on his trip as many are featured on our site.

This is a Teamwork City of Hope update and overview. The video was created by Dr. Chacha’s son, Mwita, during his time there summer 2010. You can see more of his work at www.mwendollc.com .