MEDLIFE

Watch our latest video for all the information you need to sign up, prepare for, and attend a MEDLIFE Mobile Clinic!

Sophomore Charlotte Groch, a participant on one of our 2012 Mobile Clinics in Lima, was also one of the first students to successfully use MEDLIFE's 50:50 fundraising campaign. Through our online fundraising tool, Charlotte raised $1,400 -- half of which went towards her participation fees and half of which went to the MEDLIFE Mission Fund. Recently, we used the $700 that Charlotte raised for MEDLIFE to build a new staircase in Pamplona, outside of Lima, Peru:


Charlotte's involvement with MEDLIFE began when an informative email from the organization was sent out to members of her pre-health profession club at Macalester and sparked her interest. "I looked at it and thought -- this sounds perfect for me," she said. After researching our website and listening to other student's stories, she knew that it would be the most useful way to spend her winter break.

The 50:50 Campaign was presented to her in another email she received shortly after registering with MEDLIFE. "It sounded like a great way to help me in my desire to travel, do community service, and help out with a non-profit that seemed to be doing really sustainable work. It's not just for me; it also helps out the organization at the same time." Charlotte attributes the success of her campaign to her sincerity with donors:

"I explained that it wouldn't be a one-time thing -- that it would continue on into the future by helping communities become more health-aware and by educating them about prevention."

Charlotte's funds are continuing on into the future in the form of a concrete staircase for the community of Unión Santa Fé, benefiting a community of 380 people. Check out some photos from the inauguration ceremony, and be sure to read the entire story on our website:

Learn more about Mobile Clinics >    Start a 50:50 Campaign >

This winter season, MEDLIFE held one Mobile Clinic in Cusco, Peru; two Mobile Clinics in Lima, Peru; and four Mobile Clinics in Riobamba, Ecuador. In total, 338 students participated, helping to bring primary medical services and sustainable development projects to 5,247 community members across Peru and Ecuador.

During this season, in collaboration with community leaders on the ground, we provided:

• Primary medical services to 4,779 patients
• Pap smear exams to 529 women
• Breast cancer screenings to 321 women
• Dental care to 1,383 patients
• One bathroom project in Ecuador benefiting 88 people
• Four staircase construction projects in Peru benefiting a community of 380 people

Thanks to everyone who participated in each one of our December/January clinics. Check out our video highlights reel below:

MEDLIFE has always been led by extraordinary individuals bent on committing their time, resources, and knowledge to bring Medicine, Education and Development to Low Income Families Everywhere. Tommy Flint has been no exception. As Tommy ends his career with MEDLIFE, our team wishes to extend our gratitude not only for his work as a staff member, but also for his admirable sense of integrity and compassion.

Beginning his MEDLIFE journey in 2009 as an intern in Riobamba, Ecuador, Tommy began assisting MEDLIFE's small staff of three in its mission to improve the overall welfare and health of remote communities in Ecuador. Working with our staff, Tommy was asked to wear multiple hats by providing assistance to the MEDVIDA staff during Mobile Clinics, assisting with patient follow-up, and serving as the liaison between MEDVIDA and all the passionate volunteers in the United States. During 2010 Tommy continued his efforts with MEDLIFE by relocating to Lima, Peru to assume the role of Director of Student Operations in the USA and to aid in expanding MEDVIDA's work into Peru. Working with staff in both MEDLIFE's operations in the USA and in Peru, Tommy worked tirelessly to provide Medicine, Education and Development to MEDLIFE's patients. Tommy aided in MEDLIFE's growth of nearly two-fold over the past year. 

Tommy has contributed to helping MEDLIFE's name become synonymous with excellence, integrity and outstanding quality and service to the communities it serves. Keeping with the vision of MEDLIFE's simple yet goal-focused mission has provided a stepping-stone for MEDLIFE's constant growth -- one which MEDLIFE will use to reach even greater heights.

At a glance:

• 2009 – MEDLIFE Year-long intern: Riobamba, Ecuador
• 2010 – Director of Student Operations: Helped establish MEDVIDA's operations in Peru, aided in MEDLIFE's first ever community development project 
• Fall 2011 – Director of Operations USA - Was part of a team that helped MEDLIFE's student chapter base grow from ~ 25 to 52 universities

Written by MEDLIFE Director of Student Operations, Joseph Tylutki

A few words from Tommy:

Arriving alone at the Riobamba, Ecuador bus station to begin my MEDLIFE internship on Sept 15, 2009, I imagine that I had many of the same hesitations and concerns that most MEDLIFE Mobile Clinic participants initially face. Who will be picking me up? Will I be staying in a mud hut? Do they have internet here? Is it okay that I don't speak much Spanish? And, my most pertinent question: What is it the MEDLIFE does, anyways?

After receiving a gracious welcome from MEDVIDA Director Martha Chicaiza, many of my preoccupations were quickly alleviated. I lived with her and another intern, Isa, in a cozy apartment (I slept in the living room) with running water (not potable), electricity (excepting the daily outages), and, thankfully, internet access (abysmally slow). But although I spent the following months shadowing and assisting Martha in her work, I still found myself struggling to answer a question frequently posed by friends and family back home: So, what exactly do you do down there? While I could define the fundamentals of our operation -- at that time, primary care Mobile Clinics and dedicated patient follow-up care -- it still seemed I was leaving out some essential aspect of MEDLIFE's work.

Over the past two and half years, as the number of universities participating in MEDLIFE's mission has expanded nearly ten-fold, the answer to that question has become even more complex. Our Mobile Clinic program has grown to offer not only a much more varied array of medical services and exams, but also a blossoming educational component. Undergraduate students continue to serve in summer and year-round internships, preparing them for future careers in international development and global health. The most exciting innovation came from the creation of the MEDLIFE Fund, where projects are defined not by MEDLIFE staff, but rather by the needs and desires of the poor communities with which we work. In 2012, MEDLIFE will build stairs in Lima, conduct Pap smear exams and STI screenings, promote child nutrition educational campaigns, construct schools and bathrooms in Ecuador, extract teeth and fill cavities, train student leaders, and provide thousands of people with a consult with a doctor. Can all of that be boiled down into a single mission statement?

Recently, as I reflect on my own involvement with MEDLIFE, I've decided that the most relevant question isn't 'What is MEDLIFE?', but rather, 'Who is MEDLIFE?' MEDLIFE is Carlos Benavides, a former community leader who spends his evenings not at home with his family, but rather in the urban slum of Pamplona, seeking out hillside communities that would benefit from a concrete stairway. MEDLIFE is Jose Rodriguez, a Peruvian doctor who attends to each Mobile Clinic patient with an uncommon level of sensitivity and patience -- for some patients, it may be the first time a doctor has treated them with sympathy and respect. It's Martha Chicaiza, who has dedicated seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, towards the MEDLIFE cause since the first day I met her. It's every single student volunteer who arrives in Latin America full of hope, ambition, and the unshakeable urge to lend a hand to those in need. MEDLIFE is each patient who, after graciously receiving medical treatment, humbly and hopefully requests that MEDLIFE help a sick relative, or that we return to build a set of stairs outside of their home.

MEDLIFE is a group of incredible people, each of whom provide a unique skillset and perspective to our mission. It's a work ethic that demands that we all be ready to do whatever it takes, whenever it takes, to get the job done. It's a mentality that puts the needs of our patients as a top priority. It's a firm belief that our dedicated efforts can lead to long-term improvements in the lives of the poor.

I wish I could list here every single MEDLIFE staff member and intern, and recite their positive qualities and the impression they've made upon me. I wish I could personally tell each student volunteer that their enthusiasm for MEDLIFE's mission is what has driven my work since I arrived in 2009. And I wish I could tell each patient that there are thousands of MEDLIFE supporters in the USA and Canada that care about their well-being.

As I've now superceded my initial three-month commitment to MEDLIFE by some 27 months, the time has finally come for me to seek out new opportunities. I'm profoundly grateful to have met and worked with MEDLIFE staff, interns, and volunteers, and entrust that they will continue to fight for MEDLIFE's cause for years to come. Thank you to everyone who has supported me during my time here.

Sincerely,

Tommy Flint

In 1911, the American archaeologist Hiram Bingham announced to the world that he had found the 'Lost City of the Incas' – the ruins of Machu Picchu, located near to the ancient Incan capital city of Cuzco. This year, over two million tourists will travel to Cuzco to celebrate the centenary of the 'discovery' of the ruins (of course, local inhabitants were familiar with the ruins before Bingham's arrival).

These tourists are greeted with an unparalleled range of cultural and historical sights. Even the physical structure of the city is in itself an architectural wonder: impressive Spanish colonial cathedrals and palaces are built on top of a foundation of 600-year old Incan stonework. In the central Plaza de Armas, locals clad in colorful traditional dress sell hand-made Alpaca wool scarves and sweaters. Travel agencies line cobblestone boulevards, offering adventure tourism galore including downhill biking, skydiving, bungee jumping, and hiking treks to Machu Picchu.

While each tourist chooses their own unique set of activities during their visit to Cuzco, many visitors share a similar experience of being accosted on the street by child beggars. The existence of child beggars at all hours of the day and night is just one single symptom of a greater problem plaguing the local residents of Cuzco. Despite the annual influx of millions of tourism dollars, more than half of all residents live in poverty (58.4% as of 2009). Even worse, the incidence of poverty shows no signs of abetting. From 2004-2007, while the national poverty rate in Peru fell by 9%, poverty in the Cuzco region increased by 4%.

Unsurprisingly, this poverty is most prevalent in areas not visited by tourists: the outskirts of the city, and the hundreds of surrounding villages that populate the pastoral Andean landscape. Many families in such villages survive on near-subsistence farming, reaping a meager crop of potatoes from the thin volcanic soil. Recent growth in urban employment within the city boundaries has not yet led to greater opportunity for the largely uneducated laborers of rural villages, and money from tourism does not trickle down to the villages. The region lacks sufficient healthcare infrastructure, with understaffed medical clinics offering sparse care to those with dire health concerns. An index of poverty statistics for the Cuzco region, as well as other regions of Peru, can be found at www.inei.gob.pe.

Ask any of the 2 million visitors about their experience in Cuzco, and they'll likely give an overwhelmingly positive response. Sadly, the hundreds of thousands of Cuzqueños living in poverty would have a very different story to tell.


Next week, MEDLIFE student volunteers will accompany local MEDLIFE staff and medical professionals to the Cuzco region to deliver primary care medical services to those in need. Each day the Mobile Clinic will travel to a rural village outside of Cuzco. Over the course of the week, our goal is to reach over 1,000 patients – individuals and families who possess few other options in finding solutions to their health concerns. MEDLIFE commits itself to becoming a positive agent of change in the Cuzco region by providing medical services to those who need it most.

We'll keep you updated on the progress of the Mobile Clinic with photo and text updates on this blog! Good luck to our student volunteers from UC San Diego, the University of Denver, the University of Delaware, and Union College who will be travelling to Cuzco this weekend!

Earlier this fall, we introduced Joe and Tommy's $1 Tour: a journey up and down the East Coast of the United States with the goal of giving presentations at current MEDLIFE Student Chapters, starting chapters in new schools, and raising general awareness of MEDLIFE. Along their journey across 15 states -- from Baltimore down to Florida and then all the way back up to Maine -- Tommy and Joe collected single dollars from students, friends, and MEDLIFE supporters. After they completed their tour, the $323 raised in single dollar bills for the MEDLIFE Fund was donated to our most recent staircase project in Pamplona, Peru -- a third staircase in the community of Santa Cruz.


This stair construction project was born when MEDLIFE Project Director Carlos Benavides met a family from the district of Villa María del Triunfo: Sra. Alejandrina Huaya Quispe, her husband Elias Enrique, and their three children. Elias had become the leader of their small community (approximately 50 people) after leaving his home in Puno, near the famous Lake Titicaca, in order to find available land on which he could build his family a home. After we met Elias, he coordinated a meeting between his community members and the MEDLIFE team. MEDLIFE staff members presented our history of work in the region while residents explained their community's needs: infrastructure, potable water, drainage systems, and electricity. At this meeting, we came to an agreement to build a staircase in a region of Santa Cruz called the Pasaje de los Rosales.

Thanks to the community of Santa Cruz, MEDLIFE staff members, and all of our $1.oo donors for making this project a reality!

Wearing her characteristic black woolen ski hat even in the blistering heat of Lima summer, Rosita Muñoz purposefully ascends the steep hillside of Santa Cruz, an enormous bucket of cement firmly gripped in each hand. She passes the unwieldy bucket up to a neighbor and immediately turns to go back down and retrieve more. She is working tirelessly at finishing what will be the last of three staircases that have been inaugurated in Santa Cruz, where Rosita acts as a community leader.

Santa Cruz is a small community of around 25, comprised mainly of young families who moved to Lima together from Huancayo when they learned there were large swathes of open land available outside the city. The small community sits at the top of a precipitous stretch of hillside where damp winters and dusty summers create a hazardous, accident-prone ascent for community members. Having learned of MEDLIFE's staircase undertakings in other areas, Rosita approached Project Coordinator, Carlos Benavides, in July of 2011 and proposed that her burgeoning community be next to receive assistance.

After several MEDLIFE staff members visited Santa Cruz, most were hesitant to undertake the project. Due to its daunting altitude and distance from any navigable roads below, carrying building materials was going to require a fortified and committed community. Thanks largely to the tenacious and determined spirit of Rosita, Santa Cruz presented MEDLIFE with just that. After waiting out the remaining weeks of an intractable winter, neighbors organized an impressive "cadena" or chain of workers who labored for days, bucket by bucket, to bring sand and water to the future site of their first staircase.

Rosita headed weekly meetings in Santa Cruz in the months leading up to the project, inspiring community members to participate and volunteer.

"I want my kids to have better opportunities than I did," said the mother of three. "My own mom was a single mother and nothing was ever easy."

During every stage of all three staircases, Rosa worked tirelessly, carrying buckets and rocks, mixing cement, positioning handrails, painting, and planting trees. The relatively young community now stands out against neighboring areas as a developed example of organization and initiative, its three bright red staircases striking and visible throughout Pamplona.

MEDLIFE now hopes to repay the persevering Rosita for all her hard work by helping her treat a painful kidney problem she has been suffering from for the past two years. The wrenching pain didn't stop the community leader from sweating through hours of hard manual labor, and MEDLIFE is eager to help her manage the financial strain of managing her illness.

Every year, pneumonia and other acute respiratory infections (ARIs) kill 50,000 children under the age of five in Latin America. According to the World Health Organization, at least 15% of the overall deaths in young children in Peru are caused by ARIs – diseases that are completely treatable, but that often go ignored. Unfortunately, this number may actually be even higher due to reporting inconsistencies in many developing countries. When patients with these types of issues are encountered during our Mobile Clinics, MEDLIFE helps to treat colds and other respiratory illnesses before they develop into more severe problems.



ARIs include viral and bacterial pneumonia, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Bacterial pneumonia can be caused by Streptococcus pneumonia or Haemophilus influenza type b, among other bacteria and viruses. ARIs cause coughs, fevers, body aches, chills, headaches, suppressed appetite, nausea, and noisy breathing. When they reach an acute level, children have difficult or rapid breathing, blue lips or fingers, and a fever of over 102 F.



Children are especially vulnerable to these types of problems because they do not have fully developed respiratory tracts, and are often times unable to ask for the help that they need. In developing countries, problems such as pollution, overcrowding, limited medical access, poor nutritional status, and lack of vaccines also increase the risk. Furthermore, common health problems such as diarrhea decrease immune function and contribute to a child's risk of dying from a respiratory illness. A study by the Acute Respiratory Infection Atlas showed that children who have to share a room with four or more people have an increased risk of 2.5 times. Overall, in developing countries, (where 93% percent of children are not vaccinated) 7,300 of 100,000 children die from pneumonia.

Education is an integral tool for improving the overall health of communities and promoting healthy lifestyles; likewise, it is a core component of MEDLIFE's work in Latin America. Our most recent educational workshop in Peru focused on nutritional problems that plague the communities of Pamplona Alta, such as anemia, infant and child undernutrition, and the risk of parasitic infections. This workshop combined MEDLIFE's resources with those of a local leader, Sara Torres, who helped organize and run the event.

We first met Sara on a Mobile Clinic in her community of El Trebol. Sara runs a comedor, or community kitchen, which receives formal government support through subsidies on specific food items. We learned that not only was Sara already providing low-cost meals to members of her community, but she was also passionate about educating them about the importance of a well-balanced diet. Together, we developed a workshop to teach tips for battling malnutrition, including how to use a somewhat surprising ingredient  -- chicken blood -- to combat anemia.

Watch the video below for highlights from the event!

According to the World Food Programme (WFP) in Peru, "approximately 11 million people (38%) do not cover their minimum daily calories intake (2,100Kcal)." The WFP also notes the importance of using sangrecita (chicken-blood pudding) to prevent anemia, and has published a cookbook of over 40 household recipes containing sangrecita. More on the WFP program can be found here.

Pueblo is a Spanish word that for me does not have an exact English equivalent. In its most literal sense it means village or small town, but beyond that it also carries an infectious and emotionally charged quality of proletarian community. El Pueblo is more often a force or an attitude than it is a means to describe a modest settlement.

The nuance of the word was only reinforced for me when I attended a public assembly last week in Villa Maria del Triunfo, one of the southern districts where we work in Lima. Large banners hung from the stage and plastered on the walls of the makeshift tent proclaimed the event to be a time for "Escuchando tu Voz, el Congreso y el Pueblo," which loosely translates to "Listening to your voice, Congress and the People."

The guest of honor was Peruvian Congressional President Daniel Abugattás Majluf, who greeted attendees before seating himself on stage alongside the mayors of seven participating Lima districts. More than 2,000 people attended the assembly where representatives of various social factions, including students, teachers, local community leaders, and workers, were given three minutes to speak directly to their elected officials.