By Alyssa Small
Meharry Medical College
Ciriboya, Honduras
This first week has been a lot of preparation. For the orgnization - preparing for the upcoming medical student brigade and the confrence, for me - learning Spanish and helping out where I can. I try to spend an hour in the morning in language school, which is me in front of the fan looking at my Spanish materials. I´m already more comfortable saying Spanish phrases and I can understand what people are saying to me every once in a while. So I guess I´m on the road to success.
I finished translating the document. It was a long 25 page paper that outlined the history of the Hospital and the student health brigade. It was actually really good for me to go through because I learned more about the activites of the Hospital. In short, The Primer Hospital Popular Garifuna de Honduras was founded by Dr. Luther Castillo Harry. He was a graduate of the first class of medical students from the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) in Cuba. He wanted to build a clinic to serve the Garifuna population who are medically and socially underserved. This population didn´t have any medical services and suffered from high morbidity, especially infant and maternal mortality. The mission of the Hospital and the workers reminds me a lot of Meharry Medical College, my medical school. They both exist to provide needed health services to a disadvantaged group of people. He chose Ciriboya as the location for the main hospital because it sits on a site where people must pass through to go and come from the area. This makes it very convient for the local population.
The Hospital also supports a network of clinic outpost in about 7 other communities. The network is staffed by Garifuna doctors, nurses, and staff along with a Cuban medical team. The Garifuna and Honduran medical students who are studying medicine in Cuba travel to Ciriboya and the surrounding villages during their holiday from school. This year they are going to be building a health record system as well as educating people on diabetes, high blood pressure, and sickle cell anemia. Tomorrow morning we will leave La Ceiba bright and early at 6am and travel to Ciriboya. This afternoon we had a little conference of the members of the student health brigade Dr. Luther talked about the histoy of the program and Hospital as well as the plan for the brigade and another doctor spoke about the pathology and management of hypertension and diabetes.
Yesterday I got out and was able to see more of the city. It reminds me a lot of the cities and towns of the Caribbean islands. The buildings and the architecture are similar.
If it wasn´t for the mosquitoes feasting on me, this would have been a really good experience. This little waterfall was hidden away. I wish I had brought my real camera, but I was glad to be able to capture its beauty on my cell phone.
After we visited the community of Corozal, which is part of La Ceiba. It is mainly Garifuna, but I saw a mix of ethnicities. It´s a poorer community that sits right on the beach. The water was extremely warm and the beach was nice. It seems they had a circus in town, but there was no action while I was there.
Random item of the week... I watched some blue crabs go from happy and snappy into dinner.
Off to go learn some Garifuna!
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Alyssa Small is a 4th year medical student studying at Meharry Medical College. She was born and raised in Canada to a Caribbean family¨from Barbados and is a self proclaimed ¨Canadian born Bajan. She credits her parents for instilling in her the importance of volunteerism and serving the community. She also recognizes the impact of seeing the disparities between the Caribbean and Canada for her interest in working with disadvataged groups. Her area of focus is the Caribbean and Central America. During her undergraduate career, Alyssa minored in Caribbean Studies (majored in neuroscience) and spent half a year doing study abroad at the University of the West Indies at the Cave Hill campus in Barbados. During medical school she spent a summer in Barbados studying the caregiver burder associated with HIV.
Alyssa is very excited to get some Latin American experience under her belt. She is traveling to Ciriboya, Honduras a small coastal village, where she will work at the Primer Hospital Popular Garifuna de Honduras under the leadership of Dr. Luther Castillo Harry. This is a small general, mainly non surgical hospital. Alyssa will work with team seeing patients in the clinics and hospital. She will also conduct a follow up self breast exam survey in the community of Ciriboya. Alyssa´s interest lie in women´s health and she will pursue a residency in ob-gyn after graduation in May 2012.
Meharry Medical College
Ciriboya, Honduras
This first week has been a lot of preparation. For the orgnization - preparing for the upcoming medical student brigade and the confrence, for me - learning Spanish and helping out where I can. I try to spend an hour in the morning in language school, which is me in front of the fan looking at my Spanish materials. I´m already more comfortable saying Spanish phrases and I can understand what people are saying to me every once in a while. So I guess I´m on the road to success.
I finished translating the document. It was a long 25 page paper that outlined the history of the Hospital and the student health brigade. It was actually really good for me to go through because I learned more about the activites of the Hospital. In short, The Primer Hospital Popular Garifuna de Honduras was founded by Dr. Luther Castillo Harry. He was a graduate of the first class of medical students from the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) in Cuba. He wanted to build a clinic to serve the Garifuna population who are medically and socially underserved. This population didn´t have any medical services and suffered from high morbidity, especially infant and maternal mortality. The mission of the Hospital and the workers reminds me a lot of Meharry Medical College, my medical school. They both exist to provide needed health services to a disadvantaged group of people. He chose Ciriboya as the location for the main hospital because it sits on a site where people must pass through to go and come from the area. This makes it very convient for the local population.
The Hospital also supports a network of clinic outpost in about 7 other communities. The network is staffed by Garifuna doctors, nurses, and staff along with a Cuban medical team. The Garifuna and Honduran medical students who are studying medicine in Cuba travel to Ciriboya and the surrounding villages during their holiday from school. This year they are going to be building a health record system as well as educating people on diabetes, high blood pressure, and sickle cell anemia. Tomorrow morning we will leave La Ceiba bright and early at 6am and travel to Ciriboya. This afternoon we had a little conference of the members of the student health brigade Dr. Luther talked about the histoy of the program and Hospital as well as the plan for the brigade and another doctor spoke about the pathology and management of hypertension and diabetes.
Yesterday I got out and was able to see more of the city. It reminds me a lot of the cities and towns of the Caribbean islands. The buildings and the architecture are similar.
If it wasn´t for the mosquitoes feasting on me, this would have been a really good experience. This little waterfall was hidden away. I wish I had brought my real camera, but I was glad to be able to capture its beauty on my cell phone.
After we visited the community of Corozal, which is part of La Ceiba. It is mainly Garifuna, but I saw a mix of ethnicities. It´s a poorer community that sits right on the beach. The water was extremely warm and the beach was nice. It seems they had a circus in town, but there was no action while I was there.
Random item of the week... I watched some blue crabs go from happy and snappy into dinner.
Off to go learn some Garifuna!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alyssa Small is a 4th year medical student studying at Meharry Medical College. She was born and raised in Canada to a Caribbean family¨from Barbados and is a self proclaimed ¨Canadian born Bajan. She credits her parents for instilling in her the importance of volunteerism and serving the community. She also recognizes the impact of seeing the disparities between the Caribbean and Canada for her interest in working with disadvataged groups. Her area of focus is the Caribbean and Central America. During her undergraduate career, Alyssa minored in Caribbean Studies (majored in neuroscience) and spent half a year doing study abroad at the University of the West Indies at the Cave Hill campus in Barbados. During medical school she spent a summer in Barbados studying the caregiver burder associated with HIV.
Alyssa is very excited to get some Latin American experience under her belt. She is traveling to Ciriboya, Honduras a small coastal village, where she will work at the Primer Hospital Popular Garifuna de Honduras under the leadership of Dr. Luther Castillo Harry. This is a small general, mainly non surgical hospital. Alyssa will work with team seeing patients in the clinics and hospital. She will also conduct a follow up self breast exam survey in the community of Ciriboya. Alyssa´s interest lie in women´s health and she will pursue a residency in ob-gyn after graduation in May 2012.