Beth and Ben in Malawi

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Beth and Ben in Malawi

We're Beth and Ben, a trauma surgeon and a psychotherapist. They are partnering with the Christian Health Service Corps (CHSC) as their sending organization.

Our mission is to build capacity for advanced surgical and mental health care in an area of great need, Malawi. Beth has joined the surgical staff at Nkhoma Mission Hospital outside Lilongwe and is helping in the development of an intensive care unit. This will allow Nkhoma to offer more complex surgeries to support a surgical residency program for future Malawian surgeons. The residency is under PAACS (Pan African Academy of Christian Surgeons) and started in January 2022. Ben is continuing his US based psychotherapy practice part time, as well as finding the best use of his diverse skills set which may be doing something else in the field of mental health or assisting in technology development. For more info on this and how to support our mission, please see:
https://www.healthservicecorps.org/author/stuebingadams/

To sign up for our newsletter, please visit:
https://bnbinmalawi.mailchimpsites.com/

22/03/2026

Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day.

The past 7-10 days has meant constant rain. For me, mostly annoying since I forgot my boots, so waded through the torrents to the wards and had to haul a branch out of the road to get home. But for many around the hospital community and Malawi, the rains have brought devastation. Houses washed away like these nearby, hundreds of electricity poles down, roads out, and a number of deaths. The hydroelectric plant is being bypassed to drain the swollen lake, meaning more power cuts everywhere even if the poles are still standing. Today, we are grateful the sun is finally shining and remember all those who are suffering from all this water.

16/03/2026

ACLS - advanced cardiac life support, is a standard course for doctors and nurses in much of the world. Not so in Malawi, where many of the medications and equipment involved are hard to come by. Our surgery and family medicine residents were lucky to be taught the basics of ACLS by two of their American counterparts, residents from the University of Kentucky, Lexington. I was conscripted to doing CPR 😄 Our patient tolerated that and several shocks like a champ 😜🫀💥💉

01/03/2026

Another first for Nkhoma and possibly Malawi - VATS: video assisted thoracoscopic surgery! We have been doing laparoscopy (camera in the abdomen) for several years now, but the chest is a new frontier with different challenges. We were very blessed to have the assistance of an experienced anesthesia professor from our supporting central hospital, along with their resident, to provide "one lung ventilation". In order for us to see well inside the chest, the lung on that side needed to be deflated while the other lung was used for breathing. This operation has helped confirm the diagnosis we were suspecting (which cannot usually be found on scans like CT or MRI), all with minimal pain and small incisions for the patient.

*consent to share images was obtained from the patient and participants

23/02/2026

We're not just training surgeons. Like every PAACS program, we have a spiritual curriculum as well. After our study this week, we prayed for our newest resident, Dr Kandodo, and his new home here at Nkhoma. He's in for a challenging 5 years, but he is part of our spiritual family as we all grow together in faith and action.

22/02/2026

Getting sick can be scary. Being in the ICU with a mask strapped to your face and beeping machines everywhere when you're a Malawian child from the village must be terrifying. This little buddy was getting an xray to help us diagnose why he was having so much trouble breathing. Our nurses and family medicine team did the clinical heavy lifting. I played YouTube videos of Chichewa songs to keep him still and distracted. Shout out to Mizu, the channel with all these cute songs our patients recognize!

14/02/2026

Meet Mr Simeon, a patient attendant for surgical ward. He has worked at Nkhoma Hospital since the early '90s. This week in our department meeting, he raised the issue of some vital signs not being complete on admission, so he had nothing to compare with when taking vital signs in the ward and thought that could be dangerous for patients. He is absolutely right. When all members of the team feel free to speak up and address concerns, that is where the magic of good patient care happens! Be like Mr Simeon.

07/02/2026

So proud to be part of this study. Women face all kinds of difficulties in their paths to becoming surgeons, and these are not always perceived in the same way by our male colleagues. Now we are published in a major journal! Thanks to all the authors and participants for contributing to this important conversation.

24/01/2026

Scars tell stories. Scars are declarations of survival and victory. This man's scars are a testimony, and something very unique in a setting like Malawi. He sustained complex injuries in his chest and abdomen a couple months ago. During that admission, he underwent 4 major operations, several invasive procedures, had 3 or 4 tubes coming out of him, and was in the ICU for at least a week. We were not sure he would survive. We prayed. We brought him nutrition supplements. We persisted. So did he. This week he got his final operation to get his intestines back to "normal". Every day, he greets me with a huge smile and high five. He knows how fortunate he is to be alive and see his children grow up. "Ndi li ndi moyo" he says. "I have life" (Story and photo shared with permission)

Thank you to all those who support our work here and support Nkhoma Hospital in so many ways. We couldn't do this without you!

23/01/2026

Then there were 7 ... Nkhoma PAACS surgery program has welcomed our newest resident, Dr Chifundo Kandodo! We now have at least one resident in every training year, and will have our first graduate this December!

25/12/2025

Nkhoma Hospital was recently visited by First Vice President Dr. Jane Mayemu Ansah SC JA ( rtd). Merry Christmas to us and to all who celebrate around the world!

11/12/2025

Our visiting doctors this past month made it a family affair! Dr Andrew Chew (far right) and daughter, Dr Carolyn (next to him) were surgeons overseeing our general surgery residents while most of the faculty was away at a conference. And mom, Dr Sok Chew, helped out the medical ward! They are veterans of mission work in Africa, having lived and served in Ethiopia, Niger, Madagascar, and probably several places I didn't hear about 😄 What a blessing to learn from them! And they came all the way from Australia to help out 🦘🦘

02/12/2025

Happy Giving Tuesday! Nkhoma surgical team started off the "day" by still operating at midnight on a woman with dead intestines. We sure know how to celebrate 🥳 Our surgical training program is almost 4 years old and our first resident, Dr Caleb (above), is about to become a chief resident!

Thank you to all those who make this possible by supporting our family's ability to live and work here, or through other programs connected to our residents and Nkhoma Hospital. If you would like to send in a gift this season, you can text bbsa to 50155 (for those in the US) or go to the link in our bio. We use these funds not just to live but for any variety of things: extra nutrition for complex surgical patients, buying emergency medicines for sick patients, outfitting a guest house for visiting doctors, or supporting a student through nursing college.

Address

Lilongwe

Website

https://www.healthservicecorps.org/staff/beth-stuebing-ben-adams/

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