The world of healthcare mission continues to change. Today’s electronic systems and speeds of communication mean that increasing links and networks are being created between believers in developed and developing countries without the intermediary of traditional mission agencies.
PRIME, Partnerships in International Medical Education, is an international network of doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals involved in healthcare education. Together PRIME seek to use the opportunities provided by healthcare teaching for holistic mission. It enables those with skills and experience in healthcare teaching in the UK and other countries to link with partners to provide programmes that are educational for students, healthcare teams and faculty members. Although the key partners in host countries are usually Christians, this is not always the case, and some links have been forged with those of other faiths or no faith, who share a commitment to compassionate, whole-person care, high ethical standards, and a spiritual perspective in delivering healthcare.
PRIME’s vision is to spread God’s values by delivering healthcare education around the world, reclaiming the ground captured by secularism, communism, and other godless value systems in the last few decades. It also seeks to model and teach good learner centred educational methods, while demonstrating Christ-likeness to participants, which has proved to be a powerful educational tool.
Holistic Care
Teaching whole-person care over the past 15 years, PRIME have been privileged to be able to explore, with others of many different cultures, the key issues of whole-person care. There has been a well-established Christian ethos of care, but have we really thought out the correlation between how God views the person and how healthcare professionals view their patients? Do we need to throw off some of the shackles of secular humanist thinking imposed on our profession since the Enlightenment in order to practice healthcare in a way that approaches how Jesus modelled such care? How do we teach such things within the context of the generally humanistic institutions within which we find ourselves in most of the world?
PRIME have come to realise that the answers to these questions are just as relevant in UK, USA and Australia as they are in Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia. The western medical model has largely concentrated on the biophysical causes and manifestations of disease, resulting in treatments being largely physical and chemical. Undergraduate education in healthcare reflects this. The huge psycho-spiritual dimensions of disease have been widely unrecognised and ignored until recently. Patients in both developed and developing nations are turning back to ‘alternative therapists’ and faith healers who seemingly offer help in this direction.
Communication skills are now included in the teaching curricula in ‘developed’ nations but very rarely in most developing nations. Even so, the teaching of the whole-person dimension is still largely ignored.
Programmes
In an average year, 80 PRIME tutors deliver 76 programmes in around 25 countries across Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania and South America, and has Network Members in around 60 more. Over recent years partnerships have developed with healthcare professionals and educators throughout the world who share the same ideals and zeal to see God’s love, and His view of the patient, become fully established within healthcare education. Staff continue to train and mentor local PRIME tutors to incorporate whole-person care in their own professional and teaching activities. This will enable whole-person care to become embedded in healthcare education long after the original team has returned home.
Another growing, but vital, part of PRIME’s ministry is teaching healthcare students and professionals to practice and teach healthcare which reflects the image of Jesus. To do this however, all involved need to develop their own spiritual resources. After all, Jesus felt strength go out from Him when he healed and was so tired after a busy ‘clinic’ that He withdrew to the hills to pray all night to restore his reserves, reconnect with his Father and prevent burnout.
COVID-19
The global Coronavirus pandemic has impacted members of the PRIME network and our teaching programmes significantly. The risks of gathering together for teaching remain high and healthcare professionals are preoccupied providing patient care. As a result, little face-to-face teaching is taking place. After a period of abeyance during the onset of the pandemic, we are pleased that many of our PRIME programmes are moving to, or making plans to move to, online teaching platforms such as Zoom. Our core teaching materials are being repurposed to make them suitable for the new ways of working and we are developing new materials to support healthcare professionals. New resources include our ‘Compassion Without Burnout’ and ‘Values Added’ programmes, both of which seek to support and maintain compassion and resilience in healthcare professionals.
If you are working in a situation where you feel input from PRIME would be helpful or you would like to find out more or support or work, please get in touch:
