Posted by Bill Osborne on Apr 19, 2018
Dr. Robert T. Brodell, Professor, and Chair, Department of Dermatology, University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC), spoke to the Rotary Club of North Jackson at the club's April 17, 2018 meeting.  The title of his presentation was Instructive Cases from the Deep, Deep, Deep South, Mission Medicine, Who Benefits the Most. It was an illustrated show of a mission trip that he took to Nigeria along with one of his residents, who is a Nigerian. 
 
Dr. Brodell discussed the preparation for the trip, the statistics about Nigeria and the location of the hospital and medical school in which they worked, in Enugu State. He commented that the major problem in Nigeria is the deferred maintenance of infrastructure. For example, the Enugu School of Medicine has no running water. 
 
According to Dr. Brodell, the exposure to the hot Nigerian sun creates a large number of skin cancer cases. He showed examples of these cases in his presentation. The hot humid climate in Nigeria also contributes to frequent skin disorders, not cancerous ones. He also showed examples of these.
 
Interestingly, Dr. Brodell discussed the culture of Nigeria, which includes gifts to officials for services, such as, a gift to the immigration clerk at the passport desk to overcome a procedural problem one of his colleagues had with his immunizations for yellow fever prevention. 
 
Dr. Brodell also discussed the assistance that his group received from a nonprofit named Drug Relief who donated medicine to them for treating Nigerian patients. We thank him for his very interesting presentation and for his service to the citizens of Mississippi. Dr. Brodell (center)l is shown in the accompanying photo with Club President Witt Ruffin (left), and Matt Monsour, who is program chair for the club.