Pharmacy Times, October 1998
MODERN AND TRADITIONAL MEDICINES:
CAN THEY COEXIST?
By Eileen McCormick
Last November, when Pharmacist Dan Wagner (Med-Pharm/ Nutri-FARMACY, Wildwood, PA) joined an American volunteer medical mission to Nigeria, West Africa, he could hardly have anticipated the vagaries of travel that would ensue: a dense fog over the Netherlands; a forced landing in Germany; a missed connecting flight; an 18-hour delayed landing in Lagos, South Nigeria (not the original destination); and personal baggage and certain medical supplies marooned in Amsterdam for an additional week. Surely, the makings of a "jinxed" mission, right?
But not to worry. Wagner reports that this intrepid group (four doctors, two nurses, one doctor's wife [a co-leader], and one pharmacist) quickly learned they could function without their full complement of clothing and, by the following day, they were busily dispensing their individual skills to the needy masses of this most populated country in Africa.
Serving Two Areas
Early on, the American group separated: Two doctors and a nurse returned to Bauchi Specialist Hospital in eastern Nigeria, where they began performing routine and emergency surgeries as they had on a similar mission the previous November; the others (including Wagner) reported to the Jos University Teaching Hospital at Jos, a central Nigerian plateau city with a pleasantly temperate climate. Wagner reports that the hospital's urology, nursing, and pharmacy personnel were most eager to meet their professional counterparts from the United States, a country they regard as "fantasy land."
The American medical mission group had preshipped to Nigeria 12 crates of donated medical supplies, drugs, vitamins, and equipment valued at over $50,000, which were shared among patients at three hospitals. Great care was taken to distribute these goods to the most needy individuals, because all hospital patients in Nigeria must pay for their own medication and supplies out of pocket -- an impossible dream for the most indigent.
The 17-day mission passed very quickly, according to Wagner. "Our days were filled with hard work from morning to late evening as we made rounds with the doctors and distributed crutches and medical and surgical supplies to the wards," he said. "We also met with the city's VIPs, including the governor of Jos state and tended to many, many patients."
Wagner especially enjoyed his work in the pediatric department, where he dispensed oral vitamin drops to the hundreds of children whose parents can rarely afford to buy such items. He remembers the smiles of the consenting mothers and the laughter of the children who enjoyed the sweet taste of the vitamin liquid.
Education is a principal objective of the World Health Mission because it is considered nonproductive to practice medical expertise without teaching those same skills to native personnel. This can be done via a one-on-one relationship between doctor and student, by making "rounds" with local interns, or by teaching classes to medical personnel. Pharmacist Wagner joined one of the mission doctors and nurses in giving lectures on such subjects as urology, diabetes, and complementary medicine. A serious need for diabetes education was identified at the Jos hospital, and the World Health Mission hopes to send a smaller team in the near future to help teach such basic skills as measuring glucose levels by taking finger stick blood samples.
"Green" Medicine: A Lifetime Interest
Dan Wagner has had a lifetime interest in nature and the derivation of modern medicines from natural sources, Mainly rain forest plants.
His initial "green adventure" was participating in the 1995 "Pharmacy from the Rain Forest" field trip to the Amazon in northeastern Peru. In subsequent trips, he has traveled to Costa Rica, Belize (four times), Guatemala, Nigeria (twice), Kenya, and Cuba to learn more about plant medicines, natural products, and phytomedicinals. In so doing, he has been enriched by working with some of the world's leading herbalists, botanists, and ethnobotanists. As an assistant adjunct professor of pharmacy at Duquesne University School of Pharmacy, Wagner coordinated and guided a study trip 2 years ago to the rain forests of Belize for 13 Duquesne students who observed and recorded information about how different plants are used in healing. He has led student rainforest expeditions to Belize each the last 3 years, returning again June with a group of 22.
Not surprisingly, Dan Wagner's interest in natural (alternative) medicines led him a year ago to sell the independent pharmacy he ha owned/operated for 17 years and to establish a new retail business through which he counsels patients taking both conventional and alternative drugs. Wagner reports that his travels to the rain forest and third-world countries have "reinforced my personal passion to pursue a more natural approach to pharmacy." It is not just the Asian and European natural remedy markets that are booming anymore, he adds-"Americans are also recognizing the worth of these products with growing enthusiasm."
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