Editorial

Jane Lochrie, MD

While I was in Haiti with my colleague, Dr. Nandana Kansra, I sponsored a child, as did all the volunteers in our group. I recently received this note from the five-year-old child I sponsored: “How are you? I hope you are well in the name of Jesus. Thank you for helping me. We are not very safe because the gangs are giving us trouble. May God help us.” This is so painful to read. No child should feel unsafe, especially in their own home. In this issue of Worcester Medicine, you will read the stories of some of our awe-inspiring volunteers and why they continue their work.

In the her article, “Ah the Places You Will Go” (page 7), Dr. Kansra describes her trip to Haiti where she and the team saw 600 patients in a week, “each one a story of resilience and courage.” Hunger was a pervasive symptom, with many patients forgoing their own meals to feed their children. She ends by stating “in that healing lies the greatest healing for the healer.”

In her article, “Medicine in the Amazon” (page 8), Dr. Nancy DeTora details how she chaperoned her child’s school trip to the Ecuadorian Amazon and spent the next 22 years going back once a year to care for the indigenous population, which had very limited healthcare. She gives a delightful description of some of the patients that she treated.

The desperate need for eye care in El Salvador is demonstrated in Dr. James Umlas’s article, “Volunteer Mission to El Salvador, 2023” (page 11). He has participated in 25 eye campaigns there. In addition to surgery, he and his team examined 2,000 patients and most received eye glasses.

Dr. David Kim gives a very powerful account of a young boy with a cleft lip that showed up unexpectedly to his clinic after all the equipment was packed to go home in “Boy With the Blue Sweater” (page 12). He unpacked and completed surgery under local anesthesia because his team had exhausted their anesthesia supplies. He reminds us that even though we may not be able to supply exactly what the patient needs, just listening, understanding, and holding their hand is enough to make them feel better.

In “Preparing Today’s Students for Tomorrow’s Global Health Workforce: What they Need to Know” (page 13), Drs. Michele Boucher and Jean Pugnaire tell us that student participation in global health at UMass Chan Medical School has risen exponentially to 67% and is now being offered to the graduate school of nursing. They describe the interprofessional program being offered there and relate the challenges and lessons learned over the years.

Dr. Heidi Leftwich explains, in “Where You Live Should Not Determine Whether You Live, or Whether You Die” (page 15), the hardships she encountered while sharing her knowledge of hypertensive disorder of

pregnancy to the faculty at Kenya Medical Research Institute. Most important is the gestational age of a viable fetus in Kenya being 28 weeks as compared to 22 weeks in the United States.

In “Reaching Out. What and Experience!” (page 19) Dr. Silva Rapose, a dentist, tells us about her trip to Meghalaya, India to conduct an oral hygiene awareness camp for the village children, some of whom never had the opportunity to learn to brush their teeth. On her way home she noted that she left a “transformed person.”

Pharmacists have been actively involved in responding to public health emergencies in Haiti. In “Responding to the Call: The Pharmacist’s Role in Disaster Response and Medical Missions” (page 17),Drs. Conway-Allen and Seed describe their experiences serving for Disaster Medical Assistance Teams and Medical Reserve Corps providing access to safe products, reviewing treatment plans, and making appropriate medication substitutions if drugs are not available.

Two medical students relate their experience working as case managers in two of the free medical programs. In “A Night at St. Anne’s: Filling the Gap in Worcester’s Healthcare System” (page 21) Madeline Schwartz writes that patients are the experts of their own bodies and circumstances, and they are truly our best teachers. Her experience deepened her knowledge of the barriers that patients face with the lack of access to healthcare.

In “Cold, Displaced, and Diabetic” (page 22), Akanksha Nagarkar was “blown away at the resilience of the patients” who visited the free clinical who were facing a multitude of adversities. She describes her experience as 30% frustration and 70% joy.

Please don’t leave this issue of Worcester Medicine without reading the president’s message, Legal Consult, and Society Snippets. +

Jane Lochrie, MD is Medical Director at St Anne’s and St. Peter’s Free Medical Programs and is a Professor of Medicine at UMass Chan Medical School.