In June, I travelled with the Legacy of Healing team to help six communities in
Honduras. Our team of 51 people performed 233 operations at hospital, treated 715
patients at the clinics, treated 104 dental patients at the clinics, and provided 3,000
members of the community of Valle de Angeles and the surrounding area with clean
water. The team made a big difference in Honduras and the trip had a big impact on me
as well. The most significant part of the trip for me was spending 4 days working in
surgery for 10 to 12 hours a day. I realized that I absolutely loved surgery and this was
the way I wanted to spend the rest of my life. As we reached Thursday, our last day in the
operating room, many people were saying that they were worn out and were so glad to be
done and relax. I just wanted to keep going. I loved what I was doing. I was very happy
with this discovery because this experience confirmed that no matter how difficult my
career path is going to be, it will be worth the time and hard work because I am going to
be doing what I love to do and making a difference in people’s lives through my work.
On Sunday, our first day, we screened all the patients who wished to receive surgery
during the week. I spent Sunday as a scribe for Dr. Schmidt, the plastic surgeon who
founded Legacy of Healing. As the scribe, I scheduled all Dr. Schmidt’s surgeries, made
wristbands for each patient so we could easily identify them when they came to surgery. I
also gave each patient instruction sheets that told them how to prepare for surgery and
when to come to the hospital.
In Honduras, the poor people are extremely poor. They lack things that the rich people
enjoy like healthcare and even clean water. In contrast, in the upper class parts of the
cities we visited like Tegucigalpa, houses are very nice and there are upscale malls and
hotels. As Allan Johnson states in the book Power, Privilege, and Difference, there are
two kinds of privilege; unearned advantages which are things everyone should have like
safety and value and the second type is when one group of people has power over another
(Power, Privilege, and Difference, page 22-23). In Honduras, the rich people don’t have
the security issues that many of the poor have and they also hold power over the poorer
classes. Since the poor people don’t have access to good healthcare, we saw several
patients who were desperate to have surgery so that they could go back to work. Since the
vast majority of the lower class people in Honduras work in agriculture, they can’t work
if they have been injured. It becomes a vicious cycle when poor people are too poor to
afford healthcare, but when they can’t get healthcare, sometimes they can’t even work.
One way in which we can help is to give surgeries to these poor people so that they can
work more efficiently and support their families. This fulfills another one of the
community engagement learning objectives: Recognizes how public policies and
practices, and power and privilege, have an influence on social issues. Explores ways to
alter public policy and/or identify solutions.
When we arrived at the hospital at 8 a.m. the first day, we could see long lines of people
who wanted to be screened for surgery. There were so many people that even with six
doctors screening, the doctors were busy until around 6 p.m. that night. Many of the
patients had to sit and wait for most of the day to be seen. Since Honduras is an
extremely poor country, many people told us that they had to walk from their homes for a
few hours to get to the hospital. However, they knew they would have no chance to get
surgery anywhere else so they walked there and waited for hours. It was unbelievable to
see how many seemingly simple problems have gone untreated due to the poverty of the
people and the lack of good medical care. These people who could not financially
compensate us for our work, but they were able to thank us and they were very kind and
appreciative. They gave us the rich experience of helping them, a gift much bigger for us
than money. In this way, this trip fulfilled the first community engagement objective:
Possesses awareness of purpose of service, including need for reciprocity, understanding
of social issues, and ability to see those issues from multiple perspectives.
On Monday, I was supposed to go help with intake at the clinic, but one of the students
assigned to the operating room didn’t want to go, so the team switched me to the
operating room. I was assigned to the plastic surgery operating room and I helped the
nurses in that room set up. They taught me how to set up a sterile field and pitch things
like gowns, blades, or whatever was needed onto the sterile field. I learned a lot from
them. I assisted and observed the two surgeons in that room for the rest of the morning.
After lunch, Ashley, one of the scrub techs suggested that I scrub cases in the minor room
since they had many more patients to operate on and things weren’t moving quickly
enough. Ashley taught me to put on sterile gloves by myself, what the different
instruments were called, and she taught me how to set up. She set me up, and then headed
into the other room to scrub a case. I scrubbed my first case with Dr. Cofino, a plastic
surgeon from Guatemala. He seemed very intense at first. Halfway through, he asked me,
"Why are your hands so shaky?” I answered, "This is my first time ever doing this job."
and he said, “Oh, well that's a good reason!" I tried to learn very quickly. He taught me
what angle to hand him instruments and made sure I really understood it. By the end of
the day, I was getting my instruments and scrubbing cases without Ashley’s help. I
learned a lot that day. I didn't even know what the instruments were called that morning
and by then end of the day I had to get all the instruments from the Honduran nurses who
spoke only Spanish.
Before I went on the trip, I expected to slow the doctors down more than I helped. After
all, I am a premed student who knows next to nothing about medicine yet, so what could
I do to help? However, with help from Ashley and the others, I became a scrub tech. I
scrubbed cases by myself, allowing us to run six operating tables at the same time. We
saw 47 patients on our second day, a record for Legacy of Healing. Dr. Cofino and the
scrub techs were willing to teach me how to help so that we could all work together to
take care of as many people as possible. We saw a record number of patients because the
team worked together so well. This fulfills another community engagement objective:
Relates, communicates, and works effectively with others towards sustainable social
change.
As a premed student, this trip was an extremely valuable experience for me. I observed
and assisted with many different kinds of surgeries including removing lipomas and
cysts, breast reduction, breast reconstruction, carpel tunnel, trigger fingers, and many
others. I learned a lot while scrubbing cases and observing. These skills will be very
helpful to me someday when I’m a doctor. One of the plastic surgeons helped me remove
a lipoma from a forehead and then I sutured it closed with him watching. The hand
surgeon also showed me how to suture and another premed student and I closed for him
after several cases so he could get ready for the next patient. Since Dr. Schmidt, one of
the plastic surgeons, knew that I had just finished general chemistry at UC, he talked to
me before we left about the different kinds of local anesthetics and what kinds of
functional groups they were made with. He helped me use my knowledge of chemistry to
explain why different kinds were used in different situations based on the pH and how
infections affect it. Before the trip, I didn’t understand why physics is a required class for
premed students because I didn’t see how it applies to medicine. However, Dr. Schmidt
explained how physics applies to medicine including how he thinks about the angle when
wiring a fractured mandible as well as why a bigger needle is used draw local anesthetic
out of the bottle and then a smaller needle to inject. When I take physics next year, it will
be much more interesting for me since I no know some ways in which it applies to
medicine.
As a violin performance major, I enjoyed the opportunity to take my violin along to
Honduras and Costa Rica to play. Every morning, we began the day by singing worship
songs and then hearing a brief devotional talk. Every morning, I played violin for those
meetings. I enjoyed the chance to play every day before we worked. Many people said
that the music helped to get their day off to a good start. After our work was done in
Honduras, we went to Costa Rica to sightsee. We learned a lot about the animals and the
climate. The team took a two-day whitewater rafting trip down the Pacuare river. I
brought my violin along in a dry bag. With no power or internet access at the camp on the
river, my violin was the evening entertainment. I played classical and fiddle music.
The social issues in Honduras are very difficult to resolve and there is so little we could
do with only two weeks to help. However, by engaging in projects like the Water Project
portion of our trip, we can help in a more sustainable way. By constructing a clean water
system, the team allowed the community of Valle de Angeles to have clean water for
years to come. Clean water in Honduras will reduce disease, allowing medical care to be
more available. We saw many people with genetic defects like polydactyly, a condition
where people have a nonfunctional finger or toe on each of their hands and feet. In more
affluent countries like the United States, this would be quickly and easily fixed at birth,
but in Honduras, things like that go untreated for years and keep people from working
effectively.
In the future, I plan to go on many mission trips as a doctor to help as many untreated
people as I can. I have shared my learning with my friends through my pictures. I put
pictures and descriptions of them on my Facebook page and my honors portfolio blog
page. I shared the link to my blog with friends so they can hear about my experience.
Several of team members including me are planning to share the Legacy of Healing story
at my church. One of the leaders of the team is creating a video using pictures from
everyone’s cameras. The slideshow will be shown during a song with lyrics that reflect
the mission of our team. The music group will record the song. I will be playing violin
for that recording. We will all have a link to the video to share with our friends. As my
friends see my pictures and hear my stories, I hope they will realize that making a
difference in the lives of others is really what life is all about and that they can learn and
grow from the experience of serving others. I also want more people to realize how much
people in Central America need and how they can help.
As I wrote about the experience and told others about it, I realized how much I love
mission work and medicine. It helped me clarify in my mind that I want to spend the rest
of my life making a difference in people’s lives through medicine and music.