Presentation given at the AMEN Australia 2018 annual conference held in Adelaide, Australia, www.amenaustralia.org.

AMEN Australia 2018: Healing, Surviving, Thriving

<p>Presentation given at the AMEN Australia 2018 annual conference held in Adelaide, Australia, www.amenaustralia.org.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Adventist Medical Evangelism Network Australia

Robert Granger

Philippines Mission Report

Earlier this year, in about May of this year, I read an advertisement and I believe it was in the online version of the Adventist Review about a mission opportunity that was to be taking place in the Philippines.

I thought, well look, I've got the opportunity to do so.

It was being advertised as coming through the Adventist World Radio, and also LifeSource International.

It was to be happening at what they were calling a three-day mega-clinic to be held over a three-day period in early July.

And I thought, well, look, this sounds like it would be a good challenge for me.

You get a little bit comfortable at home, and here's an opportunity to give of your time and of your knowledge and expertise to those people who might really appreciate it.

And so I thought, well, look, let's just block out a little bit of time in the clinic and let's go and do it.

And this is a program that is being — that was principally being organized, if anyone happens to know Dr.

Leila Lewis, your Pathways to Health that Dr.

Lewis runs these three-day mega clinics across America, you know, with thousands of volunteer helps and a lot of thousands of participants coming through.

Lewis, she just doesn't stand still for a moment.

She's just really quite a powerhouse and it was just a real joy to be associated with her.

But I must admit that there was another slight little selfish motivation about going to the Philippines.

And, you know, talking about being vulnerable, I don't mind being a little vulnerable.

And that is my wife and I in December or coming up December 2 years ago, my wife and I adopted a little girl from the Philippines.

So Philippines, so we thought we'd bundle up as a family and head off to the Philippines and for those of you who have never been there, that's the capital there in, of the Philippines, Manila.

And where we were heading to was the island of Palawan and the capital there, at least the major city of Puerto Princesa.

And so we were met there at the airport, a nice welcoming committee, and as the people started to stream in internationally to help with this particular clinic, there was an ENT surgeon from the U.S., a trauma surgeon that had come in, various obstetricians, gynaecologists from the US, did I already say ENT, a neurosurgeon, nurses, et cetera, who had come in, and just other helpers who thought that they could make some level of contribution.

On the ground there were various local pastors who were involved.

There were a lot of local nurses, family practitioners, a lot of dentists who were contributing their time to this particular event.

So we spent a Sabbath together, then a Sunday preparing this sports stadium, the Coliseum they called it.

And across the three-day mega clinic, we saw approximately 8, 500 people.

And I personally was seeing just only skin-only disorders, and I was seeing roughly 60, 70 people a day with those particular cases.

And so a lot of things would just make shift, you know, just shower curtains to try to make a little bit of a separation in like the surgical area where minor procedures were being done, people lining up to be triaged, you know, the labs set up for the dental, there was a pharmacy that was set up.

And each day, the clinic ran for 3 days from approximately 8 a.m.

And at 12 o'clock every day for 1 hour, we stopped our clinical work and what took place there was everyone was fed so participants, patients waiting to be seen as well as those who were volunteering.

Everyone got a lunch, a nice little packed lunch.

Leela Lewis would give a 30-minute health presentation, followed by 30 minutes from an Adventist world radio pass, something that was more overtly spiritual, biblical.

And then at the conclusion of the clinic, approximately 2 days after that, a formal two-week evangelistic series then took place.

So then on the final day, they called for commitments, and this was a lead-in to their evangelistic campaign.

So I was involved principally with skin-related issues and I had some great helpers.

And these were some of the kinds of cases that we were experiencing, things that you'd typically not get to maybe see here in Australia to this degree at, you know, this point in one's life.

You know, things that just would have been dealt with long ago.

I mean, here was an interesting case of a nasal dermoid.

I mean this turns out effectively to be central nervous system tissue extruding through the nose and so the the neurosurgeon took quite an interest on that and dealt with that particular issue.

You know common things still occur commonly.

People still get shingles in the Philippines, still get tinea corporis.

This gentleman had experienced a burn and I was able to release that burn contracture for him in just very makeshift conditions, but it worked.

I don't know who's got an interest in skin here.

The only other Adventist dermatologist in the country, Simon, unfortunately had to shoot home, but I'm sure he'd be interested in seeing some of this as well.

So a case of porokeratosis, you get to see some strange cysts in locations.

The case of syringomas on the face, presumably syringomas, I'd have to biopsy to be sure.

You know, alopecia areata is still common in the Philippines.

A tumor in the nasal passage didn't look good.

There was a lot of deviation there in the nose, so she was attended to by the ENT surgeon, and who knows what sort of prognosis that had.

I mean, here's an interesting case, not so much the skin condition but what he attempted to do with his skin.

Now, I'm not actually convinced that this is vitiligo, by the way.

But you see the dark discoloration that he's actually got on his skin there.

And the early part, exactly the early part of the disease, I mean, here's a poor man from the country but still very sensitive to the fact that his skin was turning terribly white and he attempted to pigment his skin with tattoos.

And then finally gave up when he realized that it wasn't working.

And on the flip side, and this is the really interesting thing, as I went into the local supermarket, I'm just finding just rows and rows and rows of products of soaps that are intended to whiten their skin.

So here we are in Australia, We're so intent on getting a tan and darkening our skin.

And they've got beautiful complexion, and they're trying to whiten their skin.

So dental abscess, another interesting case.

And I don't know if anyone might like to hazard a guess as to what could be going on here.

And with this constriction around his upper arm, I presume that this could be amniotic band syndrome with auto, you know, digital amputation, et cetera.

And then talking about referrals from last night, I had a written referral to me from, you know, a lady who came in and obviously went and saw 1 doctor and the doctor said, I think you need to go and see that bloke standing over there.

And respectfully referring to you, a 40-year-old female with history of a skin lesion on the right infrarobital area claims lesion resulted in wasting of the involved area and is still spreading.

So, you know, a nice young lady, but this is the normal side of her face.

And unfortunately, this is what is occurring on the right side of the face.

And you can see just the frontal view, and she has CNS involvement and ocular involvement as well.

And unfortunately, there was nothing I could do for her.

I believe that she has what we call progressive hemifacial atrophy or Perry-Romberg syndrome, which is kind of like a morphea, and there was nothing that I could do for her if she was in Australia.

There was maybe some medications that we could give that might be able to halt the disease, but the best I could do is write down something for her, give it to her, and say, look, you know, if you can see a, you know, dermatologist might be able to help you.

But unfortunately, I know that even the dermatologists in that little township were only interested in cosmetic dermatology.

An interesting case of acquired digital fibrokeratoma, so you know, able to remove that and that had been on this guy's finger for a long time.

Now if that's not a good going case of malignant melanoma, I don't know what is, in a roughly 25 year old female on a lower back.

Nasty, nasty, and who knows if, in fact, that spread, but that was removed, but you just don't know if there was systemic spread.

Some young twins who are playing around outside while I'm doing a procedure on dad behind the shower curtains and a gorgeous couple of little kids.

And my, some helpers And then we've got time to visit the famous underground river.

And then on our way home back through Manila, we're able to catch up with a young man and his sister who happened to be the son and daughter of a lady who goes to my local church in Bunbury, Western Australia.

And that was on Angela's eighth birthday.

So if ever you get a chance to be involved in some sort of mission activity, and I know that Antoinette advertises certain things on the Amen site, et cetera, and opportunities and emails, and if you see anything, I mean just over exert yourself, stretch yourself and you know I think you're going to be really blessed as I was on that occasion.

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Philippines Mission Report

Transcript

Description

Parent Conference

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