Contributing Writer Emeritus
Ross University School of Medicine
Marc Katz is a fourth year medical student and has applied for residency in internal medicine. He writes at MyKittyKatz.com and is interested in cardiology.
If you’ve had the chance to look away from your class notes and at the news over the past few weeks, you’ve undoubtedly heard about the Zika virus. You may have even had family members ask about the virus and if you, as a future health care provider, are concerned about the recent outbreaks. Consider this your SparkNotes for the Zika virus.
Before my year abroad, I decided to pursue a masters of public health at the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University. During the weeklong MPH orientation last fall, we had an eight-hour mandatory session on cultural awareness, which included drawing our cultures with crayons on blank sheets of paper and sharing them with the group. Throughout the day, one of the students kept emphasizing how much she has been grappling with her white privilege lately. At the time, I had trouble appreciating what she was referring to, but after almost four months in Africa, my “whiteness” is part of my daily thoughts.
One of my housemates and I decided early on in my time in Malawi that we needed a code word that would mean, “Austin, stop worrying about money and schedules. Just enjoy the experience and let go.” We decided that “chocolate chips” would be our secret phrase for capturing this sentiment. That way, regardless of the social situation, my housemate could remind me to let go of control and just be.
In undergrad chemistry lab, you likely were introduced to the terms accuracy and precision, often represented visually by the spread of darts on a dartboard. You were told to keep track of significant figures based on how well the various graduated cylinders and titration pipettes could measure volumes. The goal was to express the answer with as much certainty as possible, given the tools at your disposal.
Over the past few months, a recurring topic in news conversation has been the plight of refugees from Syria. Recently, European nations such as Germany have contemplated whether to extend asylum to many of the estimated 6.5 million individuals displaced within Syria, and the 3.5 million who have fled to neighboring nations. The Syrian Civil War began in 2011, and with growing instability in the region due to the growth of groups such as ISIS, much of the previous infrastructure has eroded, including the country’s health care and public health systems. There are a number of concerns for the health of refugees trapped in Syria, and for those who have found asylum in countries across the globe.
In the Gospel of Matthew, a man walks up to Jesus and asks him, “What good thing must I do to get eternal life?” Jesus replied by saying to uphold the commandments. The young man assured Jesus that he has kept all of the commandments and asked what else is required from him. In turn, Jesus replied, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
As medical students across the country enter their fourth year, many will travel thousands of miles to acquire global health experiences from the far reaches of the globe. While much can be learned by exposure to the stark differences among health systems in other countries, there is no doubt that such health disparities also affect the lives of vulnerable populations in our own communities. As a fourth-year medical student, I spent four weeks conducting a community health needs assessment of Burmese refugees in my hometown of Waterloo, Iowa, where I began to learn the meaning of global health at home.
The call for a more global medical curriculum — one that not only recognizes, but prioritizes health issues that transcend national, political and cultural demarcations — is coming from all sides. American medical student interest and participation in international electives is considerable, and surveys indicate that its growth has accelerated in recent years.
There is little doubt that many in the world lack access to adequate public health systems, and we know that good global health work can help these individuals. Fortunately, institutions and individuals are becoming increasingly interested in contributing to the field of global health. In fact, global health has become increasingly integrated into medical schools, so even tertiary care centers with little-to-no public health offerings afford their students opportunities to go abroad.
“Puedo tomar su presión? Puedo tomar su pulso?” I butchered in Spanish, over and over again. Sometimes I received a smile and laugh in return, sometimes a look of confusion, sometimes a placid unfolding of the patient’s arm. I pumped the cuff up repeatedly and listened intently over the screams of playing children and the chatting of a long line of patients.
Sitting across the table from me was a woman with four children, whose hesitancy towards their foreign doctor mirrored my own. I still wonder sometimes how I ended up in that tiny cinderblock-and-corrugated-metal church in Bolivia, not even finished with my first year of medical school. At the time, I felt frantic.
A poem from our writer-in-training Brent Schnipke about his experience abroad.
Medical Student Editor, Writer-in-Training and Columnist Emeritus
Boonshoft School of Medicine at Wright State University
Brent Schnipke is a third year medical student at Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine in Dayton, OH. He is a 2014 graduate of Mount Vernon Nazarene University with a degree in Biology. His professional interests include writing, medical humanities, and higher education. When he's not studying, he can be found reading at a local coffee shop, training for his next race, or planning an adventure with his wife. Brent is also active on social media and can be reached on Twitter and Instagram @brentschnipke.
Prints, Pages, and Pagers
Prints, Pages, and Pagers aims to look closely at the lives of medical students and doctors, real or fiction, whose lives and experiences are told in novels, short stories, poetry, or any kind of writing. These book reviews are an opportunity for medical students to learn from the many fascinating stories produced by the field of medicine, and maybe to read something other than a textbook.
