Showing compassion

Next week I am sending out my medical students to various community projects, where I want them to get to meet and talk to people who are old or poor or disabled. 

One of my remits in Patan Academy of Health Sciences (PAHS) is to teach the students compassion and help them to think of patients as people with lives full of fear, love, joy and pain – not just a disease process. 

It’s about challenging and changing attitudes. The idea is that they meet these people next week, but then go to visit them once or twice a month for the next six months, to get to know them better and just listen to their stories.

One of the places I send the students is Saathi Sewa, which meets in our Nepali church. I popped into the midweek prayer meeting to finalise the arrangements and bumped into Som dhai. 

Many of you will have seen Som dhai’s picture as I travelled around the UK this summer – he is one of the elders of our church, and has leprosy.

He has only been out of hospital the last two weeks, after a two-month admission because of the ulcers on his feet. 

He looked a little drawn and thin, but what I think is probably the hardest thing for him is that he has become quite severely deaf. 

I’m not sure, but I suspect this may be a side effect of one of the antibiotics they use for difficult to treat infections.

Deafness is such an isolating condition. Please pray for Som dhai as he comes to terms with this new disability. 

Please pray too for my students and the people they meet in the coming week. I’m hoping it will be a positive experience for everyone.

Katrina Butterworth