Dr. Jim Harrison is our excellent medical director at the CURE Malawi hospital.

You may now also call him by another name if you wish:  Professor.  Dr. Harrison has been named as an associate professor of the College of Medicine at the University of Malawi.

We asked Dr. Harrison to share some of his thoughts about this.  He was kind enough to send us this dispatch from Malawi:

I started in Malawi in December 1999, before the dream of the CURE hospital was conceived, and I was employed full-time by the College of Medicine of the University of Malawi as lecturer in the surgical department. During that year, Chris Lavy shared his dream with me of a Christian orthopaedic hospital in Blantyre, working in close cooperation with the medical college. Dr. Scott Harrison visited and offered Chris the role of chairman of the new hospital and me the role of medical director.

In December 2000, I returned to the United Kingdom for eight months. When I resumed service in Malawi, it was as a CURE employee, but I continued assisting the medical college in an honorary capacity as I have done to this day.

My role in the medical school has been to teach medical students and help in their regular and final examinations. I have also been heavily involved in postgraduate orthopaedic education, both in stimulating a weekly teaching meeting and in mentoring trainee orthopaedic surgeons (residents) from Malawi, our region in Africa, and the UK.

I undertake regular clinical duties at the government teaching hospital including on-call and a weekly fracture surgery list. In my 10 years in Malawi, I have been active in research, and my particular interests have been in HIV, orthopaedics and chronic osteomyelitis (bone infection).

In recognition of my services, I was honoured in 2004 to be promoted to honorary senior lecturer and in July 2010 to be made associate professor in the college of medicine.

I believe the close cooperation between the Beit CURE International Hospital and the College of Medicine has brought mutual benefit as we have sought to develop orthopaedics in Malawi through close cooperation and good personal relationships. I would like to thank Professor Nyengo Mkandawire, head of the department of surgery and himself an orthopaedic surgeon, who has been kind enough to welcome this cooperation.