Mindy Licurse, MD
I will confess my venture into global health first began as
a college student with the selfish hope to fulfill a childhood dream to go to
Africa, with an idealistic naivety that I was about to change the world with a
single visit. I packed my bags full of
limited medical supplies, lightweight clothes that could be rolled up to save
room, plenty of bug spray, and hopped on the plane for a three week trip to
Tanzania. Before I left, I remember a
friend distinctly saying, “That will be an eye-opening experience.” I smiled and agreed, feeling a warm rush of
pride that is unique to self-promoted altruism when you have no idea what true
altruism actually is.
Here is how
it actually went. We visited three rural villages including Bumbuli, Rombo, and
Faraja. I got accustomed to not having
hot water (or light when I showered), using Band-Aids to fix up the holes in
mosquito nets, and the casual slang including “Mambo” (“What’s up?”) in
Swahili. We spent the first part of every
visit walking miles around the villages, evaluating and triaging local
residents. This included seeking out
patients with acute or chronic illnesses as well as evaluating their housing
situations and sanitation. Days later,
we would set up a clinic in the center of the village. Patients would come to us, most of whom we
had seen during our triage visits, from the very young to the eldest. With the coordinated help of local
translators and local doctors, we would perform general physicals, draw blood
for malaria tests, and hand out the limited medical supplies we had including
short-term anti-malarials.
What did I
learn during this? When we had no electricity one day and relied upon the sun
to look through microscopes for malaria in the blood of our patients, I learned
that having technology means nothing when you do not have electricity or
infrastructure to uphold it. When a
child had a dental problem but lacked the five dollars to get to the city for
proper treatment, I learned that I had just started to peel away the first
layer of complexity involved in global poverty and underserved health access.
My eyes
were opened. I was seeing red. Frustration at the inequity and lack of
resources made my blood boil. However,
retrospective reflection has brought me to understand that having frustration
is a good motivator. It is that
frustration that led me to medicine and what continues to light a fire beneath
me in an effort to unravel and solve these problems. This is why I will continue to travel, to
seek what is unfamiliar, difficult, and learn a thing or two. As Henry Miller says, “One’s destination is never
a place, but a new way of seeing things.”
Hopefully, when we put our heads to rest in our comfortable beds and
take our heated showers, we will not forget where we have been.
