News

Sunday, 19 March 2017

Kenyan Family Medicine is growing - and also our contribution



Family Medicine is growing - and our contribution too 

 2nd Year - Class 2015 - Happy reunion
  • 10 Family Doctors in Training  (5 scholars in 2nd Year/5 scholars in 1st Year)
  • 3 Family Doctors now qualified and working 
  • Almost £84,000 raised in total                                                                                                                                                                          
   Drs Sarah (2016) and Dr Faith (2015) - in Kijabe Hospital                                                                 


Dr Hilary - Class 2016 - with a gentle bedside manner
                   

  • Thank you dear Donors 
  • Thank you dear Family Doctors for taking up this great challenge
  • Thank you Dr Bruce  for your encouragement, suggestions, planning and energetic commitment to Kenyan Family Medicine.                                                                       

Dr Joy - Class 2016                     
                   
  For two weeks in February I visited an inspiring, vibrant and dedicated group of doctors engaged in Kenyan Family Medicine. With Dr Bruce Dahlman (Medical Director of Family Medicine at Kabarak) and ex-Cambridge GP Robert Dobler(photographer),we travelled many miles along large stretches of rutted roads under the strong equatorial sun, passing tea plantations, paddy fields and bustling towns, to reach the outlying hospitals and meet our Towriss Bursary Scholars - and others      There has been a doctors strike in Kenya now for the last two months and the Mission hospitals have been overwhelmed by patients unable to get care in government hospitals. Despite this, we were given time and shown gracious hospitality - and even gained access to the wards to witness our Bursary scholars at work at Tenwek, Kijabe and Chogoria and the government hospital of Longisa, now run by our fine Dr Kibet (who has kept the hospital open throughout the strike).
                                                                           

Dr Kibet -Family Dr and former Bursary Scholar -  Superintendent Longisa Hospital  





Dr Maureen - Class 2016                                      - and one of her little patients
                                                                            
These students are working hard! both in the classroom and in hospital. The 4-year course is very demanding, for it aims to provide them with the wide variety of skills needed as a doctor who may not have anywhere to refer a patient. They will be presented with many emergencies. I was impressed by the imaginative and practical forms of both summative and formative assessment being developed to support this training. 
                  

                                                                                      Elijah - Class 2015 - in Kijabe Hospital
Litein was the smallest hospital we visited and has yet to benefit from having Family Doctors in training, though they would very much like to have them. It  has developed through the dedicated work of its hospital management - and strong local community - and has very little. It captured our hearts with its generosity and vitality. I left promising myself that I would do whatever I could to ensure that Kenya would have enough Family Doctors for Litein too. We will be offering a further 5 Scholarships for the next 2 years, alongside the 10 who are now in Year 1 and 2 of their 4-year training.


  Dr Moussa and Dr Gad (Class 2016) and Dr Boaz (Class 2015) at Chogoria Hospital

 We will still need to raise £14,500 in order to fund  £2,200 per scholar per year, which covers 66% of fees for 20 Bursary Scholars.                                                                                                                                    This is over and above a promised annual donation of £10,000 for the next 5 years.                                                                                              Thank you dear Donor for this wonderful gift !                                                                                                  

 Our family fervently believe that Mark would have been thrilled to see the fruits of this fund in his name.



Dr Boaz - Class 2015 - with his new wife, giving Ute a beautiful Burundian gift
                                                                                          
                                                                                                      Photos  by Dr Robert Dobler 
Posted by Ute
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The Mark Towriss Bursary Fund

Supporting GP training in East Africa

Mark Towriss Bursary style="float: left;" Fund

Dr Mark Towriss was dedicated to general practice and to the Bottisham Surgery community in particular. He loved to share with his patients the cycle of life: birth, death, illness, crisis - and renewed health. His enthusiasm for medical education, interest in the world, and innate human empathy made him a fine teacher of medical students and GP registrars.

When his daughter, Catriona, worked in rural Uganda in 2006, Mark visited her village. He was struck by the enormous health challenges facing small communities without the resource of an accessible GP practice. His wish was to find a supportive link to an East African primary healthcare centre. But his life was already full to bursting and this dream remained unfulfilled when he died suddenly in the midst of life, aged 54.

Mark Towriss bursary fund

The Mark Towriss Bursary Fund seeks to fulfil Mark’s wish, thereby narrowing, just a little, the huge discrepancy between the UK and East African health provision.

Bottisham surgery has 5,450 patients within a 6-mile radius

The surgery is served by theequivalent of three full-time qualified general practitioners, each having had at least 5 yearspost-graduate training. Within a 20-mile radius there are three fully-equipped general hospitals, providing comprehensive 24-hour emergency medical service of surgeons, physicians, anaesthetists, etc. for all – regardless ofability to pay.

Mark Towriss bursary fund

In Kenya there are 4,000 doctors for 32 millionpeople

One doctor for every 16,000 people – inclusive of all specialties. Moreover,approximately 80% of all doctors practise inurban areas whereas almost 80% of the population live in rural areas, often far from a town. Doctors working in rural areas, therefore, need to be multi-skilled in order to meet, with basic resources, the wide-ranging needs of their numerous patients. Family doctors need to repair wounds and perform emergency caesarean sections, treat out breaks of infectious diseases and illness due to poor nutrition as well as care for the many suffering from AIDS. Equally pressing is the need for leadership in promoting preventative healthcare and working with and motivating community health workers; for example supporting the skills of traditional birth attendants who are often the only care available to womenin childbirth. For such a monumental task, most doctors receive only 1 year’s training while working in rotation through medicine, paediatrics, obstetrics, and surgery. The relatively new discipline of Family Medicine provides a 3-year programme to properly equip doctors with the broad skills needed to be able to make a difference.

Mark Towriss bursary fund

Left: First M Med 2005 Bursary recipients with family medicine faculty (both with medical bags): Dr Peter Mwaka is now working as a family doctor at Kijabe hospital and Dr Patrick Chege, now appointed lecturer in Moi University family medicine dicision and working in Webuye district hospital.

We are partnering with The Institute of Family Medicine (INFA-MED) in Nairobi. In association with Moi University Medical School Kenya and five district hospitals, INFA-MED now runs a comprehensive 3-year post-graduate Master of Medicine in Family Health. The first cohort graduated in 2008!

Core modules include:

  • adult medical problems;
  • infectious and chronic diseases;
  • child health and paediatrics;
  • maternal and reproductive health, including family planning and obstetrics;
  • trauma and surgical specialties;
  • behavioural health;
  • cultural and spiritual concepts;
  • community health and programme administration;
  • epidemiology and research methods.

However vital family medicine skills are, training is not affordable for many doctors. This bursary intends to raise 75% of a doctor’s annual tuition fee for the duration of their 3 years training. AND we’ve committed to support ‘a doctor a year’ commencing in Autumn 2009. This year we need around £1,200. We’ll need twice this sum in 2010, and three times as much for 2011, before the sum reduces in steps in 2012 and 2013. Please give generously. If we can help transform three communities, it will provide a lasting legacy that Mark would be proud of.

The bursary fund is received by AIM (Africa Inland Mission), registered charity in England and Wales (1096364) and is allocated to the Family Medicine Leadership Development Fund, Kenya. This Fund has been set up solely to receive funds donated in Mark’s name, and successful applicants will formally receive ‘The Mark Towriss Bursary’.