S t u de n t P r of i l e
Georgetown Medicine
Second-year Medical Student Puts Cura Personalis in Action By Patricia Chaney
When Christian Petrauskis (M’14) learned that second-year medical students have the opportunity to practice the Jesuit principle of cura personalis in developing countries, he jumped at the chance. Prior to beginning medical school, Petrauskis had spent three and a half years working as head of social research at the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection in Lusaka, Zambia, and was eager to reunite with the extraordinary people he met there. The JCTR, guided by faith and the teachings of the Church, engages in research focused on social issues that affect the people of Zambia, such as the high cost of living and the challenge of accessing highquality health care in the region. And although conducting research for the JCTR and advocating for social justice are essential in bringing reform to the people of Zambia, Petrauskis wanted to do more. Christian Petrauskis (M’14) plans to return to Zambia after finishing medical school.
“While I could see that our research on cost of living was being used successfully to guide wages and labor law legislation, I felt a strong urge to get out of the office and participate in some sort of direct service to vulnerable Zambians,” he explained.
A Transformation Unfolds Petrauskis began volunteering at an orphanage, where he served as friend and role model to some of the youngest Zambians affected by and infected with HIV and AIDS. Inspired by his new friends, and as Petrauskis started to consider a career in medicine, he began shadowing two knowledgeable clinical officers at Our Lady’s Hospice. OLH was founded by Irish nuns in the late 1990s to serve cancer patients and terminally ill AIDS patients in and around Kalingalina and Mtendere, two of the poorer compounds in the capital city of Lusaka. The nuns opened the hospice at a time when the HIV infection rate among Zambian adults was nearly 20 percent and life-saving medications were unavailable. OLH served merely as a place for persons infected with AIDS to die in peace and with dignity. Then, in 2004, when the HIV/AIDS antiretroviral therapy arrived in Zambia—a treatment
Page 5 8
I
Wi n t e r 2 0 1 2