Where+There+Are+Few+Doctors

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// Case based learning in global health //

The following are cases encountered through CCRMC community global health encounters written and formatted for community learning. Cased based learning has been shown to be highly effective at application of medical knowledge for providers in training. However, this is not meant to be an exhaustive or final resource for the topics presented; rather, an insight to the conditions encountered, limited work-ups, appropriate differentials, and therapeutic abilities in places beyond our borders. Topics ranging from child and maternal health to adult medicine to public health will be presented with an intent for applicability to Family medicine or other primary care practitioners. For more global health cases in a similar model, please see the [|'Reasoning without resources'] series by Prof. Gerald Paccione of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Online case based education is part of a great “FOAMed” (free online access to medical education) movement which has been gaining momentum in the last decade. As the field has developed initially through blogging, now moving into social media websites as well as podcasts, so has its ethics kept pace. All presented patients, according to the ethics of patient confidentiality, have had verbal consent obtained. No location, names, or overt recognizable facial pictures will be shared. Lastly, as part of the FOAMed movement, the following tenents should be followed:
 * 1) **Prescriptive statements in [|FOAM] should always be based upon truth. **
 * 2) **Providers (and consumers) of [|FOAM] should humbly accept that their information may be incorrect. **
 * 3) **Providers (and consumers) of [|FOAM] should be willing to stand corrected. **
 * 4) **[|FOAM] must come with a mechanism for feedback. **
 * 5) **Providers (and consumers) of [|FOAM] should seek perspectives or opinions that contradict their own. **
 * 6) **Opinions expressed by purveyors of [|FOAM], must be labeled as such. **

I hope this case series, if nothing more, can be engaging and inspirational in attracting interest in underserved medicine both in underserved domestic areas and abroad, with an emphasis on the disproportionate amount of curable conditions that afflict these populations as well as the low cost diagnostics that can be applied to their benefit. For, in the words of PIH co-founder Paul Farmer:

“//The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world//.”