Yates Family In Soddo

  This year we have been blessed by a grant that allows us to increase our number of screening opportunities and help to cover training for local government officials and staff. We have realized that as a hospital based program there is a lot we can do, but with the community involved we can expand our reach and deepen our impact. This last week felt like a culmination of this in many ways! We had 80 people attend our training/working group as we thought of ways to attack the problem of rheumatic heart disease from primary prevention and secondary prevention. We discussed the results from screening over 21,000 Ethiopian school children! There is an Ethiopian proverb that goes like this:  When the spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion! The morning of the event God reminded me of Psalm 126:6-7 Those who sow with tears      will reap with songs of joy.     Those who go out weeping,      carrying seed to sow, will return with ...

 Memorial. The name given to this child. She was born at 33 weeks via c-section. Her mother came to the hospital very sick with breathing difficulty. The mother was taken to the OR for cesarean delivery with the hope that the delivery of the baby would help with her breathing... but it didn't help much.  One day after surgery, we found her breast mass, and found that her breathing problems were likely metastatic breast cancer. She was 33 years old. She has a husband and two other daughters ages 5 and 3. This was an emotional time for all of us, especially the family. Through the act of grace and the help of many, we were able to bring the new son, Memorial, to see his mother from the NICU to the ICU on CPAP. He was able to be held by her. We were able to get a picture for the family of this sweet family. Later that night, the nurses told me that the mother said, "that was the best gift she had had in her life. She could die in peace now."  That afternoon, I found out that...

 This year Adam received in invitation to be a speaker at The 42nd Annual Continuing Medical and Dental Education Conference . He was invited to join American surgeons from around the world working cross culturally to talk to them about how to keep things running in the OR! Adam has faithfully served behind the scenes in our hospital for almost 10 years to keep many of the hospital's facilities and equipment working. He was a great fit to give this presentation. He discussed the importance of team, building a biomedical department at your hospital and practical tips and tricks to keep equipment working and maintained in the hospital and operating room.  After many years of working quietly behind the scenes to see him be able to share with many the things he has learned through his work at Soddo Christian Hospital.

 Yadiel Tegene.  She has been my friend and partner for years. She joined us in 2016 as a GP. She was sponsored by our hospital with the help of our supporters for pediatric residency in 2018. She completed residency and joined the pediatric department in 2022. She has been a hard working, faithful, loving, kind partner that has encouraged me to be a better person and a better physician. With her by my side I have felt that I could do anything. March of this year, 2024, it was with great sadness and great joy that she left for pediatric interventional cardiology fellowship in Bangalore India at Narayana Health. She has been sponsored through Edwards Life sciences Every heart beat matters philanthropic initiative. (https://www.edwards.com/about-us/every-heartbeat-matters).   We are so thankful for this organization and their partnership over the last year to make this possible!  And we are already thrilled to welcome you home when you are done!!!

 Meet Yeab and Hiyab These two babies born at 31 weeks gestation (or 9 weeks early) are pictured here doing simultaneous Kangaroo Mother Care and Kangaroo Father Care.  Yeab and Hiyab mean which mean Belonging to God and Gift from God in Amharic.  They were born at the same time from the same mother, but were born at very different sizes. Yeab was 1.9kg (4lb and 3 oz) at birth and sister Eyab was 630g (1lb and 6 oz) at birth. Eyab is our smallest surviving baby in our NICU to date!  I am so proud of the hard work our Neonatal staff has done to keep these two babies alive and growing! I never grow tired of seeing God's creation, watching his beloved children grow and mature right before my eyes and see the love between the mother and father and their precious children.

  "Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty.” Zechariah 4:6  In March of this year, we invited a consultant team from the christian academy of African physicians to come to Soddo Christian Hospital to perform a feasibility study on starting a family medicine residency. You can read more about the organization here (https://www.caaphome.org/).   We toured all over Ethiopia meeting with representatives from the two other premier family medicine residency programs in Addis Ababa at Addis Ababa University and at St Pauls Millenium Medical College. We met with the federal ministry of health, and representatives from several other possible affiliate hospitals for this program.  We learned from the MOH's National specialty roadmap that in the next 10 years Ethiopia wants to deploy over 5,000 family medicine physicians to their primary hospitals to be the consultant to the primary care physician. Most primary care hospitals currently do not h...