SUPPORT YOUR COLLEAGUES IN THE FIELD ON DOCTORS FOR DOCTORS DAY
September 28 is the day doctors around Australia support their colleagues in the field by making a donation to Médecins Sans Frontières.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international independent medical humanitarian organisation that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural and man-made disasters, or exclusion from health care in nearly 70 countries. The teams include a diverse range of doctors, including GPs, obstetricians and gynaecologists, rural medicine and TB and HIV/AIDS specialists, and are assisted by nurses and midwives, administrators and logisticians.
Eighteen Australian and New Zealand medical colleagues are now working with MSF in 11 different countries, including Ethiopia, Pakistan, Angola, Sudan, Nepal, Uganda, Cambodia, Russia and the North Caucasus, China, Liberia and the Palestinian Territories.
As an Australian doctor, you can join your colleagues nationwide and make a valuable contribution by becoming a Medical Field Partner and pledging one of your consultancy fees every month. Or you can give a single donation.
Your support on September 28 will help your colleagues at MSF give their patients the best care possible.
For information: www.msf.org.au
STORY FROM THE FIELD: DR BRIAN RALEIGH
Taking a break from practice in the sleepy seaside village of Apollo Bay, on Victoria's Great Ocean Road, means something completely different for Dr Brian Raleigh. Brian is now on mission with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Siem Reap, Cambodia.This is his fifth mission with the organisation, the first being 10 years ago when he went to Somalia as one of MSF Australia's first volunteers. Since then he has worked in Afghanistan twice, once in Sri Lanka, Somalia and now Cambodia.
His experience sees Brian in the role of Medical Coordinator, supervising an HIV/AIDS project within a burgeoning tourist capital - Siem Reap is the closest city to the famous Angkor Wat temples. In South-east Asia, Cambodia's rate of HIV/AIDS infection is of increasing concern.
Here, Brian and his team manage the HIV outpatients and the inpatient ward in the provincial referral hospital. The MSF case load is 1600 patients including 1200 on ARVs (anti-retroviral therapy); 285 children under 15 are also on ARVs in cooperation with a children's hospital there. The 'oldest' members of the cohort have been on ARVs since October 2002.
'It is possible to provide anti-retroviral therapy to HIV infected children in resource-poor settings, and to achieve good program results and good outcomes for the individual kids, despite the limitations. Our survival rates according to duration on treatment compare favourably to results in rich countries, and our data shows virological outcomes with low failure rates for our paediatric cohort. But for MSF to give as many kids as possible a new lease on life there is no doubt that we need adapted tools and medicines.'
MSF is committed to innovation, adaptation, and improving its quality of medical care. As Brian noted, the results of his project- and other MSF programmes - belie vast gaps between resource-poor settings and the West.
'Lab-testing facilities are very basic, and the lab at the hospital is very unreliable. We often resort to sending tests to the Pasteur Institute in Phnom Penh, which is a French government supported lab of good quality. We have to try to limit sending specimens there due to cost considerations.
'We work with an "essential drug" list (I don't know who thought up that misnomer!). As much as possible we stick to fixed dose combinations and drugs that don't require refrigeration or have special requirements in terms of diet or dose timing.'
To discuss difficult cases and other questions, Brian utilises a system of telemedicine. It includes the other MSF expat doctors in Cambodia and Bangkok, as well as an experienced clinician from the Antwerp Institute for Tropical Medicine, based in Phnom Penh and an experienced Cambodian clinician.
Despite these frustrations, Brian signs up for each new mission with optimism about the progress being made.
DOCTORS FOR DOCTORS DAY TELECONFERENCE: MEET YOUR COLLEAGUES IN THE FIELD
On September 28 this year, you are invited to meet a panel of MSF doctors and other specialist speakers at MSF Australia's inaugural Doctors for Doctors Day teleconference. The conference will be an open forum - a Q&A on the key issues faced by MSF and its patients in the field, and other areas of interest. Wherever you are in Australia we can call you in to this special gathering. Please don't hesitate to contribute to a lively discussion.
Date: Thursday, September 28
Time: 9pm-9:45pm
The speakers will include*:
• Dr Myrto Schaefer, paediatrician, and head of MSF-Australia's Project Unit, which incorporates the role of health advisor on paediatrics and HIV/AIDS in children for MSF
• Philippe Couturier, Executive Director of MSF-Australia, with a career spanning 10 years with MSF in the field and at management level
• Dr Yuen Su from Sydney, currently in Nanning China on her first mission with MSF
• other doctors/speakers
Places are limited, To register, go online at www.msf.org.au
You will be called in to the teleconference by 9pm at your nominated contact number.
ACSM #33
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