MEDLIFE

Last week, we joined the Brown University MEDLIFE Chapter on campus for their last meeting of the year. As about 25 students shared pizza and soda, co-presidents Katie Deangelis and Abby Kerson summarized the chapter's accomplishments throughout the year, highlighting their increased visibility on campus, participation in two Mobile Clinics, and multiple large-scale fundraisers.

This year, the chapter raised $1,500 for the MEDLIFE Project Fund – enough to fund approximately 1.5 staircase projects in Pamplona, Peru. One of their most successful fundraisers was a raffle that required prizes to be donated by local businesses, and a heavy publicity push to get fellow students to buy tickets. Members expressed that this was a great way to reach out to the broader community and to cultivate new, local partners.

Nora Orton, a chapter member who now helps organize Brown's Mobile Clinic trips, also shared photos during the meeting from the two Mobile Clinics that Brown students participated in this year. Norah first got involved with MEDLIFE as a freshman when she saw a MEDLIFE Mobile Clinic trip advertised through the campus morning email. On a bit of a whim, she signed up for and attended a clinic in Riobamba, Ecuador, during the spring of 2011.

This week, we received updates from our first spring MEDLIFE Mobile Clinic in Tena, Ecuador. Director of MEDLIFE Ecuador Martha Chicaiza shared some of the highlights from last week's particularly hectic and successful Mobile Clinic. Translated below by MEDLIFE Intern Laura Keen:

During a round of routine Pap smears, MEDLIFE staff and volunteers encountered a patient, Alicia Alvaro, who complained of several days of irregular vaginal bleeding. After an examination, the clinic obstetrician informed Martha Chicaiza, MEDLIFE’s Director of Latin American Operations, that the cause of her bleeding was potentially due to a condition known as endometrial hyperplasia, the rapid reproduction of cells in the inner lining of the uterus. At the end of the clinic day, Martha escorted the patient to Tena Hospital where doctors admitted her and scheduled her for a hysterectomy.  

The lengthy procedure was successfully performed on Sunday, March 11th and Alicia is now resting and recovering in her home.

A day later, student volunteers and doctors visited a community where principal complaints consisted of children with mild flu symptoms, a not uncommon occurrence during clinics. Among them, however, two infants presented temperatures of almost 104 degrees fahrenheit -- a temperature that carries with it the risk of convulsion and which could also be a sign of pneumonia. MEDLIFE immediately contracted a local villager with a van to take the children and their mothers to the nearest hospital where they could be further examined. The children remained in the hospital to be treated for pneumonia.

On the same day at the second Tena clinic site, doctors and volunteers encountered a young girl complaining of pain in her arm. The girl presented a severe fracture and requested immediate help. Riding in an ambulance, Martha raced to the nearby site to find the patient and immediately transported her to the closest hospital for attention.

Student volunteers and MEDLIFE staff members were pleased that they were available last week to assist with such significant cases which may have otherwise gone overlooked or untreated. Thank you to all the participants from the March 4-10 Mobile Clinic in Tena, Ecuador!

*PHOTO UPDATE* April 23, 2012:

Seven days after the emergency hysterectomy that saved her life, MEDLIFE staff and volunteers paid Alicia Alvarado a visit to check on her condition; she is recovering superbly and is happy to be home with loved ones again. Director Martha Chicaizo's photographs from their visit to the grateful family's home who had their lives drastically altered thanks to one of our Mobile Clinics:

Alvarado and her family sincerely appreciate the organization's initiative in helping the poor receive medical care and education.  They urge us to continue our work and keep visiting communities like theirs, that are most in need. 

Although our staff members, doctors, and student volunteers conduct Mobile Clinics that last one to two weeks, the preparation for these clinics begins well in advance. MEDLIFE Fund Project Director Carlos Benavides visits several different communities, assessing needs and attempting to pinpoint locations that will serve the greatest amount of patients. Carlos also looks for a "compromiso" from the community -- a commitment to collaborate with MEDLIFE by providing community support and local labor. Community leaders also pledge to publicize the dates of the clinics and clinic services to the members of their neighborhoods.

Three to four weeks before the clinic date, another meeting is held with each community to share our plans and to receive questions. This meeting serves as an opportunity to speak about common health problems, to inform the community about our Mobile Clinic process, and to explain the types of services we offer.

In preparation for our most recent Mobile Clinic in Lima, Peru, MEDLIFE staff members held a meeting with the community of Villa El Salvador to present information about our diagnostic screenings (breast and cervical cancer) and dental services. Check out our before and after photos below!

MEDLIFE staff members meet with the community of Villa El Salvador in preparation for an upcoming Mobile Clinic:

Photos from a subsequent January Mobile Clinic in Villa El Salvador:

MEDLIFE'S FIRST WEST COAST CONFERENCE OFFERS STUDENTS FROM A RANGE OF UNVERSITIES A CHANCE TO DISCUSS, BRAINSTORM, AND FOSTER A COMMUNITY OF STUDENTS EMPOWERED AND PASSIONATE FOR PROMOTING HEALTH EDUCATION AND ACCESS TO HEALTHCARE THROUGHOUT LATIN AMERICA.

UC Berkeley's MEDLIFE Chapter cordially invites all MEDLIFE chapters and their members to UC Berkeley for a chance to meet with one another, share, and discuss various aspects of MEDLIFE. The conference will be held February 17th-18th at UC Berkeley (about 25 minutes outside of San Francisco). We have a great weekend planned, including bonding activities, public health guest speakers, interactive workshops, and more! The conference will be a unique opportunity for MEDLIFE members from across the nation to meet in person and promote our important cause.

Attendees should arrive between 5:00 PM and 7:30 PM and will be hosted by one of the UC Berkeley members. Upon arrival, Friday night will include a welcome dinner and a fun-filled scavenger hunt on the Berkeley campus! Various activities and workshops will commence on Saturday -- including a UC Berkeley professor's lecture on his/her work in the healthcare sector in poverty-stricken, developing countries as well as various workshops on establishing a successful chapter and reflections on experiences in MEDLIFE.

There will be a participation fee of $30, which includes all meals and costs for activities during the conference. We hope you will be able to join us!

Register Now >>

Thank you to the communities surrounding Riobamba and the student volunteers from Ohio State, Northwestern University, and Florida International University for all their hard work conducting MEDLIFE's first 2011-2012 winter clinic in Ecuador -- we're gearing up for three more clinics this January!

Jose Antonio, a 7 year old from the community of Sacaca, was one of the 751 patients that we saw last week during the MEDLIFE Mobile Clinic in Cuzco. Jose suffers from congenital paralysis, but was brought by his parents to the Mobile Clinic for treatment of fever and throat pain. After our doctors treated him for these symptoms, MEDLIFE staff members also talked with Jose's parents about their child's paralysis -- no one had ever spoken with them before about the need for physical therapy. Jose's parents were shown how to do perform basic physical therapy exercises and how to rotate their child's position throughout the day to prevent infection, and then directed to other local resources in order to continue his treatment in the future. Our doctors believe that although it would be difficult for Jose to ever walk, it's not impossible.


Among the many illnesses seen on Mobile Clinics, it's rare to see patients who are completely free of health problems. Yet, Yirema Quello -- a baby from Sacaca and a patient seen in Cuzco -- is healthy and strong. Yirema's mother, who lives in a community without a health center, brought Yirema to our Clinic for a regular check-up and to see how she was developing.


Yirema's mother told us that she tracked her birth and knew when she was about to deliver. That day, she prepared herself for an hour-long walk to the nearest hospital and was able to give birth safely. Yet, she said that many women are not as lucky as she was. Many women cannot wait and get to the hospital, and instead give birth in their homes. As a result, many babies die during childbirth.

Thanks to our Cuzco team for making it possible to treat Jose, Yirema, and our other 749 patients this past week!

Last week, MEDLIFE completed its fourth Mobile Clinic visit to the region of Cuzco. Split into two groups, MEDLIFE staff members and student volunteers from University of California San Diego, University of Denver, University of Delaware, University of California Riverside, and Union College, were able to see a total of 751 patients.

In addition to bringing primary doctors, dentists, and obstetricians to rural communities surrounding Cuzco, MEDLIFE has also bolstered the educational component of our clinics by adding six new videos and accompanying brochures to our education station. While patients wait to see our medical professionals, they watch short videos about common health problems such as malnutrition, cervical cancer, diabetes, and high blood pressure, among others.


Late in the afternoon of our first day in Colquepata, as we were about to shut down the clinic, a woman arrived from the community of Tocra. She told us that she had heard about the Mobile Clinic through a doctor at the nearest health center (rural communities in the Sierra are served by health centers with varying levels of medical services). The health center near her community is staffed part-time with one nurse, one technician, and one administrative assistant, and offers only a basic level of care with no emergency, diagnostic, or lab services. Although it's difficult for her to leave her nine children and the various animals she raises to make a living, this patient decided to walk three hours in the rain to be seen for various ailments -- pain in her waist, pelvic pain and inflammation, and headache. Although the doctors were packing up, we were able to fit in one last patient. She was also able to meet with an obstetrician and receive a free Pap smear in order to screen for cervical cancer. MEDLIFE will return the results of her test through a local doctor in Cuzco within fifteen days.


Thanks to the community members, student volunteers, and MEDLIFE staff members for bringing medical services to families and individuals in need in Cuzco province!

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!

The 50:50 Campaign is MEDLIFE's online fundraising tool that allows students to raise money towards their participation fees and travel grants. Watch our new video to learn more about 50:50 fundraising, and how to start your own campaign!

On the final day of our our recent Mobile Clinic in Riobamba, Ecuador we visited the community of Lirio San Jose, a small village set deep in the rolling hills of Ecuador's Andean highlands. Upon arriving at the schoolhouse where our Clinic would be hosted, our student volunteers were surprised to find a small team of local health professionals that would also be visiting patients that day. This team was comprised of employees of Ecuador's state-run medical system, and they were in the community of Lirio San Jose conducting wellness checks on pregnant women and newborn children in the area.

After speaking with the team, our student volunteers found that Ecuador had recently introduced a new program designed to encourage pregnant women to give birth at local hospitals or health centers, rather than in their own homes. Another effect of the community's physicial isolation, in addition to limited access to general health services, is that many women deliver their children at home rather than traveling to a hospital. This program keeps tabs on pregnant women in the region, assessing their health as their pregnancies' progress, and providing education and incentives to encourage women to visit a hospital to deliver their child.