Louisville Medicine Volume 65, Issue 9 | Page 14

REFLECTIONS

( continued from page 11 ) the quick and sustained responses to catastrophes through the years . Better still , preemptive , preventive and curative medical missions now thrive . Specialized missions to restore cataract blindness or remove the social sting of cleft lips and palates are available . Many medical missions incorporate a surgical team that removes diseased thyroids , cysts and tumors . These groups take their own surgeons , anesthesia experts and machines to make this possible . Dentists have been a part of teams to extract teeth beyond repair , treat infections and teach dental hygiene . Coordination between the missions and the venue where patients are to be seen is done in advance to maximize the effectiveness of treatment and follow up care .

Our medical schools , church and non-church based organizations nowadays provide opportunities for medical missions that include pre-medical , pre-clinical and clinical medical students to join them . What a wealth of information these missions provide for those that join them ! Not only do they see firsthand various diseases and health hazards they had only read about , they are exposed to hundreds of patients who have waited so long to be seen . They help to diagnose and treat patients , and realize they have to do their best regarding complications and follow up care , because these patients may not be seen again . They see these patients as a whole : their background , their humanity , their gratitude . Unencumbered by paperwork , they are motivated and can hardly wait to read more about the pathologies they have seen . It also makes them realize the privilege and responsibility of being physicians , and how they impact the lives of those they treat . As a student mused after coming back from one such mission , “ It was a humbling and amazing experience .”

Of course , added to that are the educational and aesthetic aspects of seeing new cultures , exotic sceneries and interaction with hosts and the populace . Hopefully when these fledgling physicians become full time practitioners , having seen the need outside their own comfortable quarters , they will look back and lend a hand to those barely holding their own in their end of the world , for the world is wide and the chances many to alleviate its ills . We just have to be aware and willing !

Medical mission , anyone ? Dr . Bacani-Oropilla is a retired psychiatrist .

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