We live in a world that presents great challenges but also great opportunities for groups like Medicine for Humanity. I believe there is a shift taking place in our collective consciousness, a tipping point wherein there is a great need for people to know hope, to be healed and to provide healing - and to experience the true miracle of giving. For women in some developing countries in the 21st Century, the diagnosis of cervical cancer is a death sentence. The rate of serious maternal injury and death in women in developing countries is unacceptably high. Nearly every minute of every day, a woman dies from complications of pregnancy and childbirth. We don’t experience these problems here because they are nearly totally preventable by appropriate pregnancy management, yet it happens to many hundreds of thousands of women each year in underdeveloped countries. In addition, women endure injuries and infections that lead to lifelong disabilities. Their children also suffer, nearly 10 million children under the age of 5 die in developing countries from mostly preventable diseases every year.

"MEDICAL EDUCATION - A BRIGHT FUTURE"

I believe women are the portal through which a global-wide movement to provide medical education to underserved nations will advance. This movement has already begun and is having significant impact in many places in Africa where they have embraced education. There is an urgency to accelerate this movement. At Medicine for Humanity, we are developing our own customized Global Medical Education (GME) programs to serve the specific needs of the people and places we have visited and worked. Local medical personnel in these countries will have internet-based access to current medical lectures, conferences and surgical procedures which originate from the finest American medical schools. This approach, made possible only recently by modern technology, will bring to these countries a quality of advanced medical training never before available.

The effects of this modern, radical upgrade of medical education in these underdeveloped countries can scarcely be overestimated. We look forward to forging new collaborations with the wonderful donors, doctors, and others who share our vision for a better, healthier world for women and all humanity. We know helping to improve womens health creates healthier families, communities and countries.

-LEO LAGASSE, M.D., PRESIDENT, MEDICINE FOR HUMANITY.