Erika Jimenez, Vice President of the Rotaract Club at the Santa Rosa Junior College presented a program on telemedicine in developing countries. Global Offsite Care.
 
Erika Jimenez, Vice President of the Rotaract Club at the Santa Rosa Junior College presented a program on telemedicine in developing countries. Global Offsite Care.
 
Erika has been involved with Rotary since she spent a year in Germany as a long-term exchange student when she was 15 years old. She was sponsored by the Windsor Rotary Club at that time and has remained active in their International Program since her return.
 
Rotary Club of Sebastopol Sunrise has been involved with telemedicine since they were approached by Dr. James Gude, an internist in the community, who has an interest in bringing specialty consultation to remote sites that lack such expertise. He has developed a telemedicine consultation program and implemented it for Northern California hospitals. It was only a natural extension of this program to the international community.
 
Sebastopol Sunrise has been involved with the program since its onset. Their stated goal is to spread the benefits of telemedicine worldwide in providing high quality care to the underserved using affordable technology.
 
The concept behind telemedicine is quite simple. It requires a computer (laptop, tablet), a web camera and an Internet connection. This technology can easily be connected with the central hub at Sonoma West Medical Center where Dr. Gude is located.
 
Cases are discussed once a week, on Wednesday mornings, usually highlighting a case from one of the outlying countries. Dr. Gude presents an overview of diagnosis, and then speaks in practical terms about management. The learning is a two-way process, with the doctors from the outlying underserved areas giving clinical insight as to how they manage diagnosis and treatment without all of the expensive, highly technical equipment that is available to Western medicine. Dr. Gude, and other specialists involved with conducting the grand rounds, in turn relate what clinical parameters correlate with the information gleaned from our technological approach to medicine.
 
Ultimately, those residing in the underserved countries have access to a much richer spectrum of medical diagnostic considerations and treatment options.
 
Currently the program exists through hubs in the Philippines, Nigeria, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, the Bahamas and Nepal.
 
The program is funded through grants from Rotary Clubs within District 5130, District 5130, and Rotary International. Nine Clubs from District 5130 have contributed over $13,000. The district contributes a matching amount, and Rotary International matches the district contribution plus 50% of that contributed by the Clubs. Rotary Club of Healdsburg Sunrise is not one of them.
 
A new hub is being developed in Nahan, India and donations and volunteers are needed to help establish this hub. India already has infrastructure ,including Internet, which would make establishment of a hub much more easily accomplished. Each hub needs to have a sponsoring Rotary Club that is reliable in terms of assuring that funds sent to them are used for the project. Currently this project is approximately $5,000 shy of its objective.
 
Members wishing to contact Erika or to speak with the Rotarians from Sebastopol Sunrise who are involved with the project may use the following contact information:
 
Erika Jiménez
SRJC Rotaract Vice President
 
Mikel Cook and Jeff Dunbar are Rotarian contacts for the project:
 
The project website is found at: