OVERVIEW

Thank you so much for taking time to look at our blog! We are a group of medical students who are passionate about training in underserved areas. This January and February, we are in Peru, Uganda, India, and Costa Rica internationally as well as locally in Flint and Lansing completing volunteer service, rotating in hospitals and clinics, and learning about international medicine and local underserved health care. We appreciate any time you take to read our reflections and any donations you might offer.

Please click the “Donate” link on the side for more details on how to give directly to these communities.


Thursday, January 28

Week two in the DR...





            On our day trip across the border to Haiti there were three patients with cholera.  They have their own small building known as the cholera ward. We were told that cholera is not that uncommon in the more remote areas, many of which lack latrines. A few days later we were surprised when a patient showed up at the hospital in Restauracioń with cholera.  The doctor has treated cholera patients before and made a clinical diagnosis, that was later confirmed by a laboratory a few days later. Fortunately, this patient was the only one we saw.  This presented an opportunity to go out to the community and educate about cholera.  We prepared scripts and we literally went door to door in selected neighborhoods.



            Dr. Ricardo also anticipated the need to educate and raise awareness about Zika virus, so a few days after the cholera education, we hit the streets again and spread the word about mosquito borne illnesses (dengue, chikyngunea, malaria, and zika). Much of the education was geared at eliminating mosquito breeding grounds, ie.) standing water.  I am happy to report that we finished this project before the CDC travel warning. All credit goes to Dr. Ricardo, he is amazing!




We do get to have a little fun too.  More on that later.
 





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