27
COM Outlook . Spring 2015
opportunity to witness many cases
that included assisting with a live
birth, viewing cataract surgeries,
and caring for a woman with breast
cancer. Two student doctors served
as language translators not only for
the team but for our patients so they
could understand the medical aspect
of what we were doing. This added
tremendous value as some villagers
traveled up to three hours to come to
the hospital, which was in desperate
need of assistance since it didn’t even
have a permanent staff. Consequent-
ly, several doctors traveled from
nearby cities in order to help.
Dr. Silvagni and Dr. Goyal, who
is an emergency medicine physi-
cian, were excellent mentors and
helped many patients. They also
held lectures during lunch hour to
integrate the cases being seen. Not
surprisingly, the students agreed
that both Dr. Silvagni and Dr. Goyal
are the type of physicians we as-
pire to be like one day because they
embody the humanistic aspect of
medicine that NSU-COM strives for
on a continuum. Mrs. Silvagni, who
served in a crucial role as the hospi-
tal staff trainer and leader, brought
great joy to the children by bringing
them gifts. Similarly, Mrs. Goyal led
in conducting important nutrition
surveys with student doctor Anu
Nair for all the patients being seen
in order to provide continuous care
and address the nutrition deficiencies
that are prevalent in this area.
From the dental perspective,
Natasha Patel led her college’s side
of the trip, with fellow dental stu-
dents Nimish Maniar, who serves
as IPOF’s dental vice president, and
Radha Patel providing excellent den-
tal care to their patients. During their
patient interactions, they witnessed
tooth extractions, multiple precancer-
ous lesions of leukoplakia and oral
submucous fibrosis, and multiple
buccal-space infections. They also
saw many young children afflicted
with rampant caries due to im-
proper hygiene. Because oral hygiene
education and prevention are sorely
lacking, one of the primary goals was
to teach the local community about
proper brushing techniques and pro-
vide them oral hygiene education.
Vanbandhu Arogya Dham, a
world-class health care facility being
built by the KJ Patel Charitable Trust,
will be extremely useful for future
international health outreach trips
and serve as a positive step forward.
This ultramodern facility will likely
become a model for the national
mandate in India to uplift the tribal
population, especially within the
health care sector. Significant prog-
ress has been made in construction of
the facility, which will also include a
rainwater harvesting system to rem-
edy the severe water shortage in this
generally rainy region.
In addition to providing free med-
ical and dental care to the region’s
50,000 school-aged children—and
to adults at a subsidized cost—the
facility will be used to train about
30 high school graduate tribal girls
every year as medical and dental
assistants/auxiliaries and find them
employment opportunities among
private practitioners. Vanbandhu
Arogya Dham, which will be func-
tional in a few months, will serve
as the perfect opportunity for many
medical and dental schools to join
hands with local doctors in India to
fight all the preventable diseases and
motivate the rural/tribal population
to take part in preventive measures.
Trips like this bring quite a bit of
health awareness and a sense of relief
to the local population. As a result,
many future trips will be needed to
bridge the gap between this particu-
lar area and other urban cities. We
are hoping to continue the wonder-
ful relationship that was developed
with the staff at Ahwa’s hospital and
make this a biannual trip.
It was an overwhelming experi-
ence for everyone involved, and the
patients were moved by the sheer
professionalism, love, and care
extended to them by all the team
members. Without the guidance and
experience of Dr. Silvagni, this trip
would not have been possible. He
will be conducting more trips in the
future and growing the NSU-COM
International Medical Outreach Pro-
gram, which will offer our students
more wonderful opportunities to
work alongside him.
