Public Health Project

I spent most of last week orienting myself to the daily operations of the pediatric ward and the hospital in general. As mentioned in a previous posting I also spent some time with the community health group doing pediatric consultations. After observing patient care and working with the hospital staff for approximately 1 and 1/2 weeks there appears to be an opportunity to improve the health education/ disease prevention conducted at the hospital.

Schweitzer pediatric ward:

Currently, the community health clinic is the sole source of health education on the hospital's campus. The visual aides they use are a bit outdated and weathered to say the least. On Friday I met with the regional public health director (Dr. Diallo) at Lambarene's General Hospital. Dr. Diallo appears to be an extremely motivated individual and identified disease prevention education as the region's primary health care concern. Subsequent to our meeting I met with a young artist who lives on the Albert Schweitzer Hospital campus and spoke with him about possible collaboration in creating health animations. I intend to meet with the hospital director this week to discuss the possibility of developing a health education program.

Lambarene General Hospital: