One of the things I am most pleased with from this trip is a series of portraits of patients that Heidi examined on clinic days. After some experimentation with camera settings and flash in her examination room I found a technique that I really liked. The result was 24 patient portraits of which I am making large framed prints (10″x15″) to exhibit as an art show. If you know anyone or any place that might be interested in exhibiting this collection let me know.

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One of the last projects I worked on during our mission trip to Ghana was revamping the hospital’s website (www.baptistmedicalcenter.org) using WordPress (the same blogging system that powers this website). The old website was very out-of-date and the amount of content was unorganized and overwhelming.

I worked with the Failes, Hewitts, and Jimmy Huey to update the content and add new information. Due to the amount of text, I interspersed photos throughout to break up the monotony. Now the website also has a blog which the missionaries can update on their own.

Another new feature is a large Media section with Video Tours and over 300 photos that I took while in Nalerigu. I also scanned and uploaded 65 photos dating back to 1957 from Dr. Faile’s old photo albums.

If you know anyone interested in doing or supporting medical missions I encourage you to share the website with them.

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With 2008 being BMC’s 50th anniversary I decided to take Dr. Faile’s old photos of the hospital from the 50s and 60s and try to recreated some of the images. I went around the hospital grounds and tried to take new photos from the exact same angles as the originals.

The result was a series of 18 pairs of photos that span from 1958 to the present. Have a look at them and see if you can spot Heidi in two of them.

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Before leaving, Heidi found time to do three small paintings of the Hewitt kids from photos I took of them. She gave the paintings to Mona and Earl as a Christmas present. Mona scanned them and shared the digital copies with us.

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A few days before Christmas, I was on call. Dr. Faile and I were down in the theater preparing to do a surgery when a man was wheeled in on a gurney. A cloth was wrapped around his head – his body covered in blood. He looked like an extra in a zombie movie.  His face was painted with dried blood. His white shirt was now red.  Even his pants were covered in blood. Dr. Faile and the theater staff started IV fluids in an attempt to replace the fluids he had lost. Read the rest of this entry »

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Kerry Spencer is a cool guy. That about sums it up. He is a young, single guy who has spent two 2-year terms as a missionary in West Africa. I met him while on a photo assignment in southwestern Burkina Faso. Since Kerry is such a cool guy, the West Africa media team had written a story on him and wanted photos to go with the story.

You can download my 15-minute audio interview with Kerry from December 15, 2007 using the following link: Kerry Spencer Audio Interview (6.2MB)
You may need to right-click the link and choose “Save Target As…” to save it to your computer. Read the rest of this entry »

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One of the projects I worked on during our trip was a series of video tours of the hospital’s facilities. The target audience is volunteers coming to the hospital – to give them an idea of what to expect and how things work. Each video has one of the IMB missionary staff giving the audience a walk through of a place while talking about what they do there.

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In the northern part of Ghana, HIV/AIDS is not as widespread as in other parts of Africa (http://www.avert.org/subaadults.htm).

BMC does not have a program to supply the medicines for HIV which are called HAART (Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy). Once a patient is diagnosed, we give treatment for the immediate complaints, then refer him/her to one of several hospitals in Ghana that can provide the medicines for the treatment of HIV/AIDS. Read the rest of this entry »

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