Changes to Nurses Ministry
For some years CMF has been working in close partnership with Christian Nurses and Midwives (CNM) to develop a Christian nurses' fellowship in England and Wales. Recently CMF and CNM have mutually agreed that trying to run a single ministry through both organisations was not the most effective way forward, and so it is that the membership and ministry of CNM formally became a part of CMF in February. This means that all CNM members are now CMF members – which means that we will see little change in practice, as we all already get CMF mailings and access to events. The CNM website, Facebook and Twitter pages are all changing to reflect this. The nursing department of Steve and Dimity carry on serving graduate and student nurses as before, and the ministry is now known as CMF Nurses and Midwives.
Our greatest asset in building up a nurses' ministry and fellowship is our membership. You can encourage and support Christian nurses where you are, connect them with CMF, encourage them to come to local or workplace meetings, join you at regional or national conferences, etc. Gift Memberships for nurses and other resources will be going live very soon.
Euro regional conference
In September the Nurses Christian Fellowship European Regional Conference will be happening in Madrid. A bursary programme exists to help students and other nurse members to attend. There will be two preconference programmes, one on Leadership and the other on Spiritual Care. More details available on the CMF Events pages or at www.ncfieurope.org
Nurses' appeal
To date our Christmas appeal to support new opportunities among nurses has yielded a highly encouraging £69,446.
International Students encouraged
Discovering English culinary delights was a daily joy for the 26 students attending the 2014 International Medical Students Conference (IMSC) held in London from 3-7 February. Fish and chips went down well, but some drew the line at mushy peas. Together they represented 23 countries as farflung as Africa, Central Asia, Europe and the Middle East.
The key themes were ethics and practical organisational skills to be used within local CMF groups in their home countries. Many will return with a vision for pioneering CMF-type work in their home countries.
Playing a key role with talks on ethical questions was Professor John Wyatt.
ICMDA registrations and bursaries
There is still plenty of time to register for the ICMDA World Congress in Rotterdam, 19-26 July 2014 (22-26 July, with students and juniors meeting 19-22 July). There are realistic hopes of achieving an attendance of 1,000. This promises to be a seminal event. Medics attending earlier Congresses testify to its far-reaching impact on their lives and careers. Pray for a good outcome for the appeal to CMF members to provide bursaries to enable people from resource-poor countries to attend. ICMDA wants to provide at least 200 bursary places: so far it has received a daunting 700 applications. We hope to contribute £25,000 – so far giving stands at just under half of that.
New leadership for ICMDA Eurasia
Rick Paul, who is based in The Netherlands, has succeeded James Tomlinson as ICMDA coordinator for the Eurasia region. Heartfelt thanks go to James for his dedicated service over many years. In mid- March there was a useful consultation for representatives of movements in the region, with Vicky Lavy attending on behalf of CMF.
PRIME
Richard Vincent has become PRIME's first-ever Chief Executive Officer, while John Caladine has joined the PRIME Board of Trustees as treasurer, succeeding Alan Ritchie.
PRIME tutors delivered 59 separate programmes in 34 different countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, North, South America and Oceania, according to its latest Annual Report. Here are some highlights:
Albania used to be one of the most isolated and backward eastern European countries. There are growing opportunities for Christians to contribute to medical education and there is now a full-time PRIME tutor located in the country. PRIME delivered several Transformation Conferences with workshops on diabetic feet, cardiology, ophthalmoscopy and advanced skills in consultations. Training for mental health professionals was also undertaken.
In Armenia a team of PRIME tutors have completed a three year palliative care project. The 2013 programme included paediatric palliative care and teaching in Nagorno Karabagh. PRIME teams have now taught in all the major medical and nursing schools in the country.
Egypt, scene of much communal unrest, continues to receive support from PRIME in various teaching hospitals. Plans for an MSc in Family Medicine are being explored. A tutor training conference is planned for later in 2014.
Requests have been received from South Sudan for help with mental healthcare training, including management of epilepsy and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There are hopes to provide training for church leaders and Christian workers, again on mental health, at the request of a local evangelical bishop.
GP chaplaincy network
The Association of Chaplaincy in General Practice has launched a new website. The Association seeks to facilitate connections between people who are interested in this concept. www.gpchaplaincy.com
