With U.S. Department of State funding, WiRED plans to restart its successful lecture and seminar program. The program connects Iraqi medical professionals laboring under overwhelmingly difficult conditions with Western medical schools via real-time videoconferencing. U.S. medical schools provide lectures and doctor-to-doctor patient consultation. This year, WiRED’s Iraq efforts will focus on women’s and children’s health, areas of great need.

WiRED is developing new and innovative telemedicine projects for India in 2008. With financial support from the Medtronic Foundation, WiRED will provide medical information in live lectures to Indian doctors, who will record them and add localized content for retransmission throughout the country. In a ripple effect, smaller medical facilities outside India’s large urban areas will have access to information they could not otherwise obtain.

Additional projects in Central America are slated for 2008, with the opportunity to establish another Medical Information Center in impoverished western Nicaragua and Honduras. WiRED also will begin work in El Salvador, opening up access for doctors and medical students to connect to their international colleagues and obtain up-to-date information.

Telemedicine programs in the Balkans will continue and expand. In Kosovo, WiRED will conduct a videoconference lecture/seminar program between U.S. and local medical schools, primarily with the University of Prishtina.

With the help of WiRED supporters and the efforts of our volunteers and board members, WiRED anticipates a year of accomplishments in providing increased access to information and education to isolated medical professionals around the world.