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Domenican Republic
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Santiago |
 |
la Clinica de Enfermedades de Dano
Immunologico (CEDI) |
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Research |
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Summer 2008 |
| |
 |
| I spent the summer working in la Clinica de Enfermedades
de Dano Immunologico (CEDI) in Santiago, Dominican Republic. CEDI is the
country’s largest HIV/AIDS care center, with just over 1000 patients.
My project involved enlisting two groups, one control and one receiving
the peer educator intervention, into a study that would track the patients
over a year period. Tracking involved bi-annual of patients’ HIV-related
knowledge and viral load analysis. I spent the first two weeks splitting my time between
sitting in on patient visits and looking through the database for patients
who met the peer-educator intervention criteria. While in clinic I observed
and took patient vitals, which enabled me to practice my ICM-1 skills
quite often. Once the patients were identified we organized a focus group
to discuss issues of adherence and recommendations for improving clinic
services. Following the focus group, we devoted most of our time to identifying
peer educator candidates, creating a training curriculum for the peer-educators
and then running a week long training. The training gave me the opportunity to learn, more formally,
about HIV treatment regimens. It was also a great opportunity to really
push my Spanish speaking ability, as I had to write and teach a lesson
in Spanish and participate in several role-plays in Spanish. By the time
I left the intervention was almost set to begin. My major goals for the
summer were to improve my medical Spanish and be of some assistance to
the clinic, and I was able to accomplish both. |
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Haiti
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Fond Des Blancs |
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Lopital St. Boniface |
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Research; Administrative
work |
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Summer 2006 |
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|
| I worked in Haiti at a rural hospital called Lopital
St. Boniface which is supported by the St. Boniface Foundation (www.haitihealth.org).
This hospital is located in Fond Des Blancs in the southern part of Haiti.
They have 30 beds, 5 full-time doctors, 30 nurses, a lab technician, pharmacist,
and dentist. It’s a fantastic hospital that really is saving hundreds
of lives, and improving the quality of life for over 40,000 patients that
they see every year. I had two main activities at the hospital, a research
project, and an administrative role. I would spend the weekday mornings
doing finance and adminitrative tasks, and the afternoons were dedicated
to my research project. As one of my administrative projects, I worked with the
pharmacist to create a database to track the medications being given to
the patients on ARV medication for AIDS. I also worked with the hospital
director’s assistant to improve their budget tracking. Finally, I started
an asset-tracking system for the hospital. In the afternoons I worked
on a research project that I designed. My research made a comparison with Haitians that lived
close to the hospital in Fond Des Blancs with other Haitians who lived
in Vialet, which is relatively far away from a hospital and is also where
I did my Peace Corps service. I was particularly interested in learning
about the differences between peoples’ understanding of illness and death,
and how that might change as a function of their access to a hospital.I
also looked into how much people spent on healthcare, how long they waited
to seek healthcare, and other metrics such as use of prenatal care services.
There are many special challenges of working in another
country. I was fortunate to have spent two years in Haiti in the Peace
Corps, so many of the challenges (language, adjusting to the culture,
getting around, etc.) were not an issue for me. My challenges were more
project-specific. One challenge is to gain the trust of people with whom
you are working. When I went house-to-house for the survey, I hired a
Haitian from the community to accompany me. Another challenge is the time
limit. Although I was in Haiti for 8 weeks, I found that my time was quite
short. Realistic planning with adequate expectations will prevent a lot
of frustration and allow people to accomplish what they set out to accomplish.
For my research project, I had several people from the Boston Haitian
community review my questions before I went to Haiti. This helped minimize
the changes that I needed to do once I got there. Also, I was able to
go down to Haiti over my spring break with Project Medishare (www.projectmedishare.org)
and was able to pilot my questionnaire while I was there. Ideally, planning
on two weeks to pilot the questionnaire would have been even better. |
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Mexico
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Guadalajara |
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Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara
School of Medicine |
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Medical Spanish immersion; Clinical work |
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Summer 2004 (4 weeks) |
| |
|
| The
Medical Spanish Course I undertook was through Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara
School of Medicine, Guadalajara, Mexico. The duration is 4 weeks, during
which you take Spanish courses in the morning and are placed in local clinics
in the afternoons. The days are long but many of the participants get together
after hours and on the weekends to go to local hot spots and plan weekend
trips to places such as Puerto Vallarta, Mexico City, and Guanajuato; the
prgram administrators also plan events. Guadalajara is very Americanized
with places such as KFC, Burger King, and Pizza Hut, so you are are hoping
for a more “authentic experience,” this isn’t the program for you, and conversely,
if you want to pick up some Spanish but don’t want to experience a tremendous
culture shock or change in lifestyle, this might be up your alley. |
