April Details

Catching up on work in Malawi

In some ways, trips away from Malawi provide some of the biggest opportunities for us to step away from the busy, hectic pace and re-evaluate our long term goals. It also gives our local partners a chance to take ownership or projects, and to see what will be self-sustaining and what will not. While we were gone, a group of Nazarene Leaders attended their first full Training of Trainers course with a Community Health Evangelism trainer with World Challenge. After returning, we spent the final days of April talking with church leaders about next steps in trainings and community transformation. We talked about our priorities and the possibility of beginning some new partnerships at the refugee camp and helping individuals with grants and fundraising. Greg finished teaching his class and I reconnected with my patients. I worked a bit too many hours that first week back, trying to catch up on everything while meeting some deadlines for US-based work. But now I am getting back on track and trying to balance work with well-being. And my eye is only twitching every few days, less on days when I rest more.

Preventive Medicine and Work in America:

Last year, Christina began spending 10-15 hours a week working on projects in America, some of which supplement our income. Here are some updates from work on different projects over the last month:

San Bernardino Maternal Health: Although no women died in childbirth in San Bernardino County from 2008-2018, the San Bernardino County epidemiologist found reports of 20 potential pregnancy-related deaths from 2019-2021. Some of these deaths include violence and drug overdose, while others are direct complications from pregnancy and COVID. Over the next year, Christina will be working with a team to try to understand the deaths and try to develop systems that will improve them in the future.

Loma Linda University – Christina just submitted her third quarterly report for the 5-year HRSA funded grant to increase training of primary care doctors in Maternal Health Outcomes with Loma Linda’s Preventive Medicine department. Our team is progressing well towards our goals for the first year. This grant continues to be the largest supplementation of our income, presents the largest challenges, and provides the most job satisfaction.

Global Missions Health Conference: Greg, Christina, and our CHSC colleague Laura have been invited to present about transformational development at the Global Missions Health Conference this fall. We will also talk about the types of training that doctors can pursue to make more sustainable impacts on communities.

American College of Lifestyle Medicine: Christina is finishing development of introductory modules for the ACLM’s Lifestyle Medicine Residency Curriculum; the final portion the team is working on involves health disparities and how social determinants of health effect lifestyle, outcomes, and health equity.

American College of Preventive Medicine Christina helped write an abstract about the logistics of recruiting doctors into Preventive Medicine Fellowships which will be presented at the ACPM conference later this year.

American Journal of Preventive Medicine Christina is an editor for the new open access journal AJPM Focus. She provided advice about publications for the first research article she was asked to review.

American Heart Association Christina helped Cal Baptist University and Loma Linda University submit a proposal for a 4-year grant to develop a maternal health equity research network in the Inland Empire. We should hear if we’ve moved into the final stages of that grant in the next month.

AAFP Physician Leaders in Wellbeing Program: Christina continues as part of a cohort of doctors pursuing training in wellbeing for individuals and organizations. She is hoping that lessons learned will translate to improved wellness for herself and colleagues