Medical School

He welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God,
and cured those who had need of healing.
Luke 9:11

It was great timing. We arrived at Kibuye, Burundi on Saturday, and the first class of medical students from the Frank Ogden Medical School in Bujumbura arrived on Sunday, to begin their clinical training.

They are a young, energetic, and bright group of Christian students, eager to learn. Most are from Burundi, but there are students from Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, and Congo as well. They will be learning clinical medicine from Dr. Frank Ogden and the other physicians on the staff.

Up until now, they had been only in the classroom, studying anatomy, physiology, and other topics. They had never used a stethoscope before, and some of them didn’t even own one.

There wasn’t a clear strategy for how to put them to work at Kibuye, so I helped Frank work out a plan. We split them into three groups, and rotated them through the day, one group with Frank, one with me, and one with Dr. Eric or Dr. Diane, who are Burundian doctors on the staff.

At night, Frank arranged for two of the students to stay at the hospital to help with emergencies, C-sections, and other surgeries that might come up. The nurses set up a couple of mattresses and blankets on the floor for them to sleep on.

I took my group and began to teach them physical diagnosis. How to use a stethoscope, an otoscope, and do a good physical examination of a patient. They practiced on each other, and each day we covered a different set of organ systems.










I love helping young people discover new things for themselves, and these sessions were full of new discoveries. We talked about normal and abnormal findings, and what they might mean. Since they were also seeing patients in the hospital, we could discuss what physical findings they might anticipate with different diagnoses.










In the evening, Kathy and I walked over to their dorm and sat in the common room, talking about life and medicine and growing up in East Africa. These young medical students don’t have a modern, well-equipped academic hospital to learn in; Kibuye Hospital has very limited resources.

But they have an endless supply of sick patients to learn from, and some very good teachers in Frank, Diane, and Eric, who will not only teach them how to care for patients, but how to share the love of Christ as they do so, and how to conduct themselves with integrity and high moral standards.

These enthusiastic men and women have a desire to be the best. Burundi and its neighboring countries are poor and working hard to catch up with the modern world. These young medical students represent the best of their generation, and they truly are the future of their countries.

- Doug