Chincha - Week 1 Recap

What a great week it has been here in Chincha! The clinic was packed every day with physicians (from Cleveland,  St. Louis, and Peru), students, patients, and Peruvian volunteers. I didn’t really know what to expect the clinic to be like, and I was amazed at how many specialties the clinic had to offer, including pediatrics, neurology, psychiatry, cardiology, endocrinology, and dermatology! As a medical student, it was amazing to have the opportunity to work with so many different types of physicians, and give back in so many ways. This past Friday, Danielle (another medical student) and I had the opportunity to work with Dr. Walden, a gastroenterologist from St. Louis. Dr. Walden was a great teacher and his enthusiasm for GI was truly contagious! After a few patient consults and many Omeprazole prescriptions (or “Vitamin O,” as Dr. Walden affectionately calls the miracle drug), we got to help perform a colonoscopy and 2 upper endoscopies. One patient that really stuck with me was a woman in her late 50s who had been having trouble swallowing. As soon as we entered the esophagus, the reason was quite clear – a rapidly growing and obstructive squamous cell carcinoma. This is a very aggressive cancer that often requires radiation, chemotherapy, and ultimate removal of the tumor. But, in a place of poverty where the nearest hospital is a 3 hour bus ride away, treatment becomes much more difficult to obtain. This patient taught me that, even though we are making a huge difference here in Chincha, there is still so much more that needs to be done to help the Peruvians here.

Vision screenings

Another patient who had a large impact on me was a woman in her mid 60s that came to the neurologist because she was having migraines. She was the only Quechua-speaking patient that I have seen in Chincha so far, and she had brought her son with her to translate. After the history was taken, exam was performed, and prescription was written, we sat and talked with her for a little bit. We asked about her family, and she said that her two sons were going to school in Lima. Then, her eyes welled up with tears as she told us that her mother never let her go to school when she was younger, and how that was all she ever wanted to do in order to make a better life for herself and her family. The fact she wanted an education so badly that she teared up about it 20 years later was very moving to me. I have known my whole life that I have been lucky to have supportive parents and to go to college and now medical school… but, to some extent, I feel like I always took those things for granted. From now on, whenever I am stressing about an upcoming medical school exam or feeling overwhelmed about the shear amount of knowledge that I need to retain for the Boards, I will remember my conversation with that woman and be grateful that I have been given the opportunity to learn how to heal others.

PHOP with clinic nurses

After a week of clinic, our group took a trip to Paracas, a coastal beach town, on Saturday. Our adventure started with a 2 hour long boat ride to the Islas Ballestas, a group of small islands consisting of mainly rock formations. As our boat bobbed up and down in the waves, we found ourselves surrounded by a million birds, including pelicans and blue-footed boobys, seals, and penguins. A few thousand birds raced our boat back to the shore, creating artwork in the sky with their formations. Just before arriving back, we were even visited by a few dolphins! After doing a little bit of obligatory tourist shopping, we drove through the desert – not even on roads, just in the sand. We stopped at a couple of spots to look at some fossils that had been uncovered by the earthquake that hit the area in 2007. We also stopped by the “Red Beach,” a beach whose color comes from the iron in its sand. Our last stop was at a small lake speckled with the boats of busy fisherman. At its edge was a restaurant where we ate a very fish-filled meal which included some delicious Ceviche! After a long day, we headed back to Chincha to catch up on some much-needed sleep.  My experience so far in Peru has been a mix of adventure, service, self-discovery,  and learning – about medicine and life in general. I’ve been in Peru for 3 weeks, and it seems strange that in just one more week, I will be back in the United States… I hope to make this last week a great ending to my month-long journey!

Relaxing over the weekend

Michelle Filanovsky

MS2

Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine