Episode 10: Redeployment in the age of coronavirus: Dr. Maria Morban

Dr. Maria Morban is a medical doctor who trained at Universidad Autonoma is Santo Domingo, Domican Republic. She has been living in New York City for over a decade, where she holds several volunteer positions and works as a clinical research coordinator for a nephrology research group at Columbia University. She was recently redeployed during the coronavirus crisis as a dialysis technician. Dr. Morban is a member of Manhattan Mennonite Fellowship in New York City. A transcript of this conversation is available here.

Episode 9: Working as a nurse during a pandemic, part 2

As the coronavirus pandemic continues, MennoHealth Cast host Joann Hunsberger speaks with two frontline health-care providers, Anna Hershey and Kaedi Baer. Both are nurses who have been redeployed during the pandemic. In part 1, Anna, from Philadelphia, talks about working at a coronavirus testing location. In part 2, Kaedi, who normally works in a surgical center in Parker, Colorado, discusses her work after being redeployed to an emergency room. Listen as these women discuss some of the challenges of redeployment and working as frontline health-care providers during the coronavirus pandemic.

Episode 8: Working as a nurse during a pandemic, part 1

As the coronavirus pandemic continues, MennoHealth Cast host Joann Hunsberger speaks with two frontline health-care providers, Anna Hershey and Kaedi Baer. Both are nurses who have been redeployed during the pandemic. In part 1, Anna, from Philadelphia, talks about working at a coronavirus testing location. In part 2, Kaedi, who normally works in a surgical center in Parker, Colorado, discusses her work after being redeployed to an emergency room. Listen as these women discuss some of the challenges of redeployment and working as frontline health-care providers during the coronavirus pandemic.

 

Episode 7: Ethical considerations during the coronavirus pandemic

Listen in as Joann Hunsberger interviews Rev. Dr. Joseph J. Kotva Jr., an Anabaptist bioethicist, as they discuss some of the ethical conundrums related to patient care and provider protections during the coronavirus pandemic. Joe is ordained in the Mennonite church and currently co-directs the ethics program at the Indiana University School of Medicine in South Bend.

Episode 6: Special episode on COVID-19

In this episode, host Joann Hunsberger discusses COVID-19 with Dr. Dan Nafziger of Goshen, Indiana, where he is chief medical officer at Goshen Health. Listen in as they discuss the new coronavirus, some common terminology used to discuss the pandemic and how it might affect our church community culture.

Episode 5: Mennos in Medicine: Doug Smucker

In episode 5 of MennoHealth Cast, Joann Hunsberger speaks with Dr. Doug Smucker. Dr. Smucker started his career as a family medicine doctor and later evolved into a palliative and hospice medicine doctor. He is professor emeritus of family and community medicine at University of Cincinnati and currently works at Christ Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio, as medical director of palliative care. In this podcast, he talks about the struggles and challenges of caring for patients in their final days and discusses how his Goshen (Indiana) College education was formative in his career choices.

Episode 4: Mennos in Medicine: Linda Witmer

This episode features Linda Witmer, who spent 23 years serving among the K’ekchi’, the Indigenous people of Guatemala, as a representative of both Mennonite Central Committee and Eastern Mennonite Missions. With the K’ekchi’, she focused on church programs and public health projects that were in large part initiated by the community. At Goshen (Indiana) College she taught classes on community health, transcultural nursing and health care for the poor and served as adjunct professor located in Guatemala, where she offered an annual three-week course on “Doing Theology in Latin America.” She returned to the United States, where she completed her Master of Divinity at Lancaster (Pennsylvania) Theological Seminary and now is director of the RN to BS nursing program at the Eastern Mennonite University extension site in Lancaster, where she engages the students in understanding different cultural perspectives.

Episode 3: Mennos in Medicine: David Sack

David Sack is a professor in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. In this episode, Dr. Sack discusses the evolution of the oral cholera vaccine (check out a photo of it here), reflects on the challenges and rewards of research-oriented academic medicine, and gives some of his own personal story about following in the path of his brothers.

Episode 2: Mennos in Medicine: Rebecca Heidkamp

Rebecca Heidkamp is a public health researcher at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. She specializes in addressing nutrition problems in locations with low resources. In this episode Rebecca talks to our host, Joann Hunsberger, about being in Haiti in 2010 during the earthquake, including some of her beautiful moments of personal encounters and how she met Mennonites.

Episode 1: Mennos in Medicine: Karen Vundla

Our host, Joann Hunsberger, talks with Karen Vundla who recently completed her 46-year career in nursing. They talk about Karen’s experiences in clinical nursing in various locations including Zimbabwe, Lexington and Baltimore. Karen also shares stories of encounters with oncology patients that have continued to be meaningful to her through the years and ethical dilemmas she has faced while providing patient care.