Basic HTML Version
6
COM Outlook . Summer 2012
Medical
Outreach
on
Display
in
Ecuador
s the plane descended into a plateau valley of the
Andes, the passengers aboard LAN Ecuador leaned
over to watch out their windows. The city of
Quito was below, with mountainsides all around. It is a
breathtaking experience to fly into the capital city of Ecua-
dor, and this was only the beginning of our adventure.
On board this flight in early March 2012 was a group
of 26 individuals that was preparing to provide medical
care to various people in underserved areas of Ecuador.
As the leader of this medical outreach trip, I counted the
participants several times, as they had been seated seem-
ingly randomly aboard the plane. Once everyone cleared
customs and immigration and boarded the bus to Hosteria
San Jorge, I breathed my first sigh of relief.
The group was composed of two NSU-COM faculty
members (myself and Sam Snyder, D.O., chair of internal
medicine), one NSU-COM alumnus (Jennifer Capezzuti,
D.O.), a dentist (Rachel Kwal, D.D.S.), an emergency
physician (Gail Rubin, M.D.), an obstetrician/gynecolo-
gist (Paula Youngdahl, M.D.), a nurse practitioner (Nancy
Heriot, ARNP), and a registered nurse (Helen Costa,
R.N.) along with 17 medical students and one nonmedical
volunteer. We also had several parent-child combinations
among the 26 volunteers.
We arrived at Hosteria San Jorge in the dark, making
our way to our rooms with headlamps and flashlights in
the 50-degree thin air of a 9,500-foot elevation. We sat down
A
to one of many multicourse meals, tiredly eating as we at-
tempted to get to know each other. The following day, we
enjoyed one of many breakfasts together before we sepa-
rated into two groups to enjoy some free time in Ecuador.
Our first day of medical outreach occurred at an elemen-
tary school that was within walking distance of Hosteria
San Jorge. With 13 suitcases of medications and supplies
brought down to the school by a pickup truck, we walked
to the school and set up our stations. The first priority was
to find a private room for the gynecological examinations,
followed by a secure room to house the pharmacy.
For many of the students, this represented their first
opportunity to truly assist in taking a patient history,
performing a physical examination, and participat-
ing in the discussion of the differential diagnoses and
treatment plans. All but one of the medical students
were OMS-1s, and although they had some exposure to
patient care prior to this trip, they were truly an inte-
gral part of the team each and every day. Patient care
was divided into several stations: triage, gynecology,
pharmacy, osteopathic manipulation, dentistry, and four
general medicine stations.
In triage, students would ask some basic history ques-
tions to find out why the patient was seeking treatment
that day. This helped to decide which practitioner would
be best suited to see the patient. The students rotated
among the different practitioners after each half day of
medical care, which allowed them to gain exposure to the
various aspects of clinical care and the different specialties
represented. This may have been the only opportunity for
the students to assist in the practice of dentistry as several
were fortunate enough to participate in tooth extractions,
which they found to be very rewarding.
By Jill Ross, D.O., Assistant Professor of Family Medicine