Honors Link

Serving others and science have been consistent passions in my life for many years, so when I first began to consider a career in medicine, which combines both of these passions, I knew it was for me. Throughout my undergraduate career, I have sought out opportunities that would allow me to gain experience in the medical field through volunteering and when a fellow student informed me about Global Brigades, I knew I had to get involved. Global Brigades is an international NGO that sends university students to developing countries that are in desperate need of assistance. Although Global Brigades supplies a variety of different services from Microfinance to Engineering to Clean Water based on level of development of the country, our brigade focused on Medical, Dental and Public Health.

Our first three days in Nicaragua we set up a free health clinic for citizens of nearby communities. With different stations where students would perform intake on patients (taking vitals, family histories and asking for chief symptoms), shadow physician interactions, work in the pharmacy, shadow dentists, perform gynecological procedures, and provide educational workshops to adults on sexual health, oral hygiene and pesticide use. During these three days, I was lucky enough to shadow a physician for 137 patients and work with all three of the Nicaraguan physicians with us. Observing the different ways that the physicians interacted with the patients was very interesting to me – each had their own style and would focus on different aspects of health. One physicians took a more holistic approach asking about water intake, diet and smoking habit; another was much more focused on explaining to the patient what was causing their illness; and the last one was more interested in prescribing a medication and moving on to the next patient. This gave me valuable insight into how my own patient interactions can drastically alter outcomes for the patients. I was amazed at some of the most common illnesses that the patients suffered from, as they were often ones that are considered rare in the United States. Many times patients were stricken with parasites, malnutrition, anemia and vaginal infections that are so easily prevented with proper sanitation, education and resources – all of which are not so easily procured in Nicaragua. We would later understand this unsettling reality, however we treated the patients with the medications we had available and by the time we had completed our three-day Medical Brigade, we had served 1,389 patients and had made a drastic impact in their lives.

The next two days were spent on a Public Health Brigade. During this portion of our trip, we were able to truly see how the Nicaraguans live, and why the illnesses that are so preventable are also so common. The family that I was paired with lived in a small, two-room house made from mud and bricks. The floors were dirt, they cooked over an open flame inside the house and their lavatory station was a deep hole in the ground not far from their water supply. It was no wonder this family suffered from common illnesses – their living conditions were unsanitary, they were exposing themselves to dangerous chemicals and did not have the resources to change it. However, we were able to help and change that. We mixed concrete by hand to pave their largest living quarter with cement, we used cinderblocks to block in a rectangular hole in the ground about four feet wide by twelve feet long that would serve as a sewage drain and we built a lavatory station consisting of a shower stall, a wash station and a toilet stall. The lavatory station pumped a supply of water through and provided running water for the family. All of the wastewater and sewage would then run from the lavatory station through a drainage system and into the sewage drain. This meant that the sewage – which causes many of the health issues we saw during our Medical Brigade – was being disposed of in a sanitary way that kept it out of the water supply. The family was sincerely grateful for the work that we did for them and how much healthier they would be with proper sanitation. All it took was resources and a little bit of “elbow grease” to truly impact the lives of these people and keep them happier and healthier.

One of my biggest takeaways from this experience – and one that I believe will impact my career in medicine – is how important proper sanitation and preventative measures can be in a population’s health. In our Medical Brigade, we saw the diseases that affect these people on a population-wide level and how they could easily be prevented through basic measures, like in our Public Health Brigade. It has made me consider our own healthcare system in the United States. American healthcare is notorious for focusing on curative care and treating illnesses, while leaving much to be desired in preventative care and education. If we were to change the way we think about healthcare on a national level to focus on preventative care, we would see an improvement in healthcare outcomes and overall quality of health of Americans. I saw firsthand how (on a small scale) doing preventative work like bettering living standards and educational opportunities can have drastic impacts on the health of populations. This same model could be extended to the United States and we could reduce our national spending on health care by preventing illness before it occurs. In the end, though we spent our time helping an incredibly impoverished population, we also saw the flaws in our own health care system.

To conclude, I am immensely grateful to have received the Honors Experience Scholarship. Without this scholarship, it would have been very difficult and financially taxing for me to have this opportunity. I look forward to utilizing the experiences I had, the sights I saw, the people I met and the knowledge I gained to further my career and become the best physician and humanitarian I can be. Thank you  Honors Experience!