MennoHealth Cast

Episode 20: Five Life Standards for Healthcare Providers

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 17:30:00 -0400

Dr. Malinda Berry and Dr. Donna Minter chat with Joann about the Five Life Standards and their work on Mennonite Healthcare Fellowship's Nurture Council as they prepare to bring this anabaptist peace theology, based on Doris Janzen Longacre's Book "Living More with Less," to the Annual Gathering.

Episode 19: Mennos in Medicine: Medical Missions; Interview with Bill Swartley

Tue, 30 Aug 2022 11:00:00 -0400

This episode of MennoHealth Cast features Bill Swartley, a nurse anesthetist from Salina, Kansas, who has 25+ years experience in medical missions with several organizations, including participation as team leader for medical/surgical trips.

Episode 18: Mennos in Medicine: Social epidemiology comes to life during a pandemic; An interview with Allison Ruark

Fri, 25 Jun 2021 14:00:00 -0400

Allison Ruark discusses her first year of teaching epidemiology during a pandemic and life changes the pandemic has brought to her and her family, with a sudden move from South Africa to the states. She gives us an epidemiological perspective on the pandemic and the impact the vaccine is having on our daily lives.

Episode 17: Occupational therapy makes life accessible; An interview with Esther Bucher

Thu, 03 Jun 2021 08:00:00 -0400

Esther Bucher talks about her experience as an occupational therapist, how she came to her profession in her forties and her two service terms abroad with different Mennonite mission groups, including time in Vietnam as a MCC service worker where she worked with victims of Agent Orange.

Episode 16: Mennos in Medicine: To Nazareth and back. An interview with Bob Martin

Thu, 08 Apr 2021 13:00:00 -0400

Dr. Martin is a retired physician currently living in York County, PA. He spent much of his career working in medical missions in Nazareth, Israel alongside his wife, Nancy Martin. Nancy, who died in 2019, was instrumental in starting the School of Nursing at Nazareth Hospital. Dr. Martin recently published a memoir of their life journey entitled, “Together in Galilee.”

Episode 15: Mennos in Medicine: Debriefing a year into COVID; Interview with Marla and Jesse Hostetter Kropf

Fri, 26 Feb 2021 16:00:00 -0500

A year into the COVID pandemic, Jesse and Marla talk about their experiences working in Emergency Medicine and Primary Care. Marla is a nurse practitioner in primary care and Jesse is an emergency medicine physician and COVID has changed both their personal priorities and professional practice. They discuss the expected and unexpected challenges the pandemic brought to their work and how they were able to support each other through the past year.

Episode 14: Cultural Competency, COVID and Resiliency; An interview with Lawrence T. Cheung

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 15:00:00 -0500

Lawrence T. Cheung, MCS, BCC is a Certified Spiritual Heath Practitioner (chaplain) specializing in the care of nephrology patients in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He spoke with MennoHealth Cast about the special needs of nephrology patients at the end of life, how COVID has changed his practice and his work on cultural competency with Canadian Virtual Hospice. Attached is the link to the Interfaith service of loss, healing, and hope which was organized to give assuage the sorrow carried by all of us in the midst of this pandemic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO5w_p8pm64.

Episode 13: A year in grief: Interview with Joe Longacher

Thu, 22 Oct 2020 12:15:00 -0400

Dr. Joe Longacher, former President of Mennonite Healthcare Fellowship, discusses his years in service serving as a general practitioner, how he found his way to the specialty of gastroenterology, and what has continued to keep him busy as a retiree. Dr. Longacher explores his immense grief, considering the death of his several family members over the last 18 months and how he and his family have found resilience in the toughest of times.

Episode 12: Mennos in Medicine: Joy Sawatzky

Fri, 14 Aug 2020 20:45:00 -0400

In this episode, pastor Joy Sawatzky describes her passion for exploring the stories of her congregants at the senior living community of Souderton Mennonite Homes, which is part of Living Branches. Joy describes her winding path from being a bedside nurse to finding her passion as a pastor who dwells in the stories of those in her church, helping them to find meaning during the last chapters of their lives. This podcast was recorded prior to the COVID pandemic.

Episode 11: Introducing MHF's new executive director, Cate Desjardins, MDiv, MPH

Wed, 24 Jun 2020 10:00:00 -0400

Mennonite Healthcare Fellowship welcomes Cate Desjardins to bring her passion for integrating spirituality and faith into healthcare as the organization’s new executive director. Cate has a Master of Public Health in epidemiology and is a leader in spiritual care research with a primary focus on how people use faith to make difficult medical decisions for their children or loved ones who cannot decide from themselves. Listen in to learn more about Cate’s research, how COVID-19 has affected hospital chaplaincy and her hopes for MHF.

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

Wed, 27 May 2020 14:00:00 -0400

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.

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

Mon, 20 Apr 2020 09:30:00 -0400

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

Mon, 20 Apr 2020 09:15:00 -0400

Episode 7: Ethical considerations during the coronavirus pandemic

Fri, 03 Apr 2020 10:00:00 -0400

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

Sun, 15 Mar 2020 17:30:00 -0400

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 novel 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

Tue, 04 Feb 2020 12:30:00 -0500

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

Fri, 25 Oct 2019 08:00:00 -0400

Episode 4 of the MennoHealth Cast features Linda Witmer, who spent 23 years serving 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

Tue, 30 Jul 2019 09:15:00 -0400

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, 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

Mon, 13 May 2019 06:00:00 -0400

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

Wed, 06 Mar 2019 10:15:00 -0500

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.