The following post has been written by: Marc Cassone, PCOM DO Class of 2016, [email protected] (feel free to reach out with questions!) Medical Student Missions – Haiti Spend 7 days working at a rural health clinic in Verrettes, Haiti. You will work closely with a team of other medical students providing medical care to rural villages. As part of a small team you will have plenty of opportunity to work closely with the physicians running the trip, practicing your skills, and gaining experience. The students are given as much responsibility as they can handle and are interested in taking. During my trip each medical student was assigned their own interpreter and patients and were in charge of running the patient history, exam, diagnosis, and prescriptions on their own with an attending physician present to check-in with. We were also in charge of preparing supplies, running the pharmacy, and coordinating with local staff. In five days of clinic as a team of five we saw over 700 patients which allowed us to see lots of different pathologies not commonly seen in the US including TB, ringworm, malaria, malnourishment, and a host of other infectious diseases. The attending on our trip was the extremely knowledgeable Dr. William Forgey- one of the premier experts in wilderness and travel medicine. The clinics are run both in villages and in the mountains (accessed by epic 4×4 rides) and I truly felt like we were helping out the local communities. We also had the opportunity to visit the most well-known clinics in the country (and beacons of practicing medicine in the developing world): Hôpital Albert Schweitzer and Paul Farmer’s/PIH’s Hôpital Zanmi Lasante as well as a completely self-sufficient USAID clinic on top of a mountain and a cholera clinic. Three meals a day are provided and the accommodations were excellent for Haitian standards. (Gorgeous views of Haiti’s Artibonite Mountain right from your breakfast table!) You have most late afternoons off and some of the activities we partook in include going to a local soccer match, classes on Haitian culture & language, mountain and waterfall hikes, beach trip, and even an evening at a voodoo ceremony with a local medicine man! Caveat: This trip is only a week but extremely affordable and you get tons of experience! This is also a smaller organization and will not provide a lot of the pretrip or in-country support some of the larger nonprofits will. It is probably not ideal if this is your first experience in a developing country. However- because of its small nature it really gives you the freedom to shape your own experience and gain from it as much as you are willing to put in! If you enjoy the trip there are also opportunities to return on future trips as part of clinics or vaccination campaigns. Vine Trust: Amazon Hope 2 – Iquitos, Peru This Scottish NGO offers to medical mission trips, both based on former British Naval ships turned into floating clinics. One is on Lake Tanganiyka, Tanzania and the other is on the headwaters of the Amazon in Peru. The Amazon Hope is a 2-week trip in which a variety of medical staff (most are Docs from the UK) that live aboard the boat and work with local staff including physicians, midwifes, lab techs, and nurses. Pending on water levels/rainy season the boat will travel up the Maranon or Tigre Rivers- both major tributaries to the Amazon. The trip departs from Iquitos- the largest city in the world accessible only by plane or boat and known at the “Capital of the Amazon”. While on the ship, you will spend most the morning/early afternoons seeing patients from various local communities along the river- some being some of the most remote villages in South America having access to “floating” healthcare only once every three months. Medical students will work closely with translators, local staff, and expat volunteers to see patients and are given as much responsibility as they can handle (with oversight of course). Pathologies are mostly primary care issues with many tropical diseases seen as well (malaria, parasites, anemia, rash, infectious diarrhea, etc). You will be seeing many, many children- so review your pediatrics! Occasionally, if smaller villages are inaccessible by the major boat and small Explo Team will go on a smaller auxiliary boat with limited supplies to see those communities. Afternoons are spent exploring local communities, playing soccer/volleyball with staff/locals, hanging out and on-board karaoke on Saturdays! The boat travels to villages during the early evenings/early mornings. Meals are on board and eaten family-style with staff and surprisingly fresh! Accommodations are small rooms/bunks but A/C and cold showers are available (if everything is working!). If you’re lucky often you’ll see a variety of parrots and the famous pink dolphins of the amazon from right off the ship. Incredible experience! I recommend to any medical student willing to live aboard for a few weeks!
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