COM Outlook Winter 2020

CUBA NOVA SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY | 27 On June 9, 2019, a group of 16 class of 2022 students from the Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine (KPCOM) traveled to Santa Clara, Cuba, to participate in a weeklong medical internship in collaboration with the Universidad de Ciencias Médicas de Villa Clara. During their stay, the students immersed themselves in the medical knowledge, culture, and daily lives of the Cuban people. The Cuban medical experience was different from any medical outreach trip the KPCOM has previously coordinated, because it was the first time American students were able to join Cuban medical students and physicians in their work. Each KPCOM student chose a specialty that piqued his or her interest and rotated within that specialty the entire week. The chosen specialties were dermatology, internal medicine, obstetrics/ gynecology (OB/GYN), ophthalmology, otolaryngology, and pediatrics. Each specialty had one to four students per doctor, which allowed for an individu- alized and educational experience. Elaine M. Wallace, D.O., M.S. 4 , KPCOM dean, accompanied the students to Cuba to provide guidance and insight, as did Evelyn Martinez, medical outreach program coordinator, and Eduardo R. Pla-Alvarez, budget analyst II. MATERNITY HOSPITAL The four students who participated on the OB/GYN service worked with the department chief and other faculty members at a maternity hospital. Additionally, the students toured the various departments affiliated with prenatal and postnatal care and attended lectures on various OB/GYN topics, as well as exceptional cases. Pregnant patients in the province of Villa Clara travel to the main hospital to deliver their babies. The students witnessed many deliveries and participat- ed in caring for newborns in the delivery room. One notable case was a baby girl born with a cleft palate. There was total silence in the room, because prenatal tests showed no signs of the congenital deformity. This was a prime instance where, because of the lack of 3-D ultrasound equipment, the tension in the room was palpable, as the doctor had to com- municate this finding with the mother. The interning experience opened the students’ eyes to the lack of resources and the remarkable adaptability and resilience Cuban physicians possess in managing their patients. DERMATOLOGY CLINIC The two KPCOM students who rotated through the dermatology clinic gained a wealth of knowledge in the specialty when they joined the fifth-year Cuban medical students’ lectures to become familiar with the cases being presented in the afternoon clinic. While visiting the clinic, they saw many of the skin microbes they had learned about just a few months prior while completing their first year at the KPCOM. BY BRITTANY MILO, JILLIAN LEIBOWITZ , AND ALLAN BARRAZA Top left: Yara Khalifa assists in the delivery room. Top center: KPCOM student Jillian Leibowitz examines a pediatric ophthalmology patient at Arnaldo Milian Castro Hospital in Santa Clara. Top right: KPCOM student Kellen Creech palpates a male patient. Bottom: Elaine M. Wallace, D.O., M.S. 4 , KPCOM dean, is standing fifth from left with Universidad de Ciencias Médicas de Villa Clara deans, faculty members, and students. KPCOM class of 2022 students are kneeling and sitting in front. “He who studies medicine without books sails an uncharted sea, but he who studies medicine without patients does not go to sea at all.” —WILLIAM OSLER, M.D. (continued on page 29)