Spring Break in Lima, anyone?
That was the destination for a number of Scripps and other Claremont Colleges students this year. The group of 11 participated in a program called MEDLIFE — Medical Education and Development for Low Income Families Everywhere. MEDLIFE is a national student-run organization that helps bring healthcare to rural areas in Ecuador, Peru, and the Amazon. The group organizes medical brigades to impoverished communities in these regions.
Scripps juniors Gina Newman, Pia Faxon, and Jean Kang founded a MEDLIFE chapter in Claremont last year. The main work of the student group is to raise awareness about international public health issues and to organize the weeklong brigade to Lima. With about 50 active members and 100 more on the mailing list, the organization draws students who are interested in global health concerns, Spanish, medicine, and travel abroad. Students from all five of the Claremont Colleges — Scripps, Pomona, Pitzer, Harvey Mudd, and Claremont McKenna — took part in the actual medical brigade this spring.
They traveled to rural communities near Lima, Peru, accompanied by several doctors and dentists. The team set up temporary clinics in school buildings and the Claremont Colleges students shadowed the physicians and dentists. They also had the opportunity to perform basic procedures, demonstrate proper brushing techniques (to an audience that included those who had never owned a toothbrush), worked at the pharmacy, and triaged patients.
According to Pitzer student Natalee Salcedo ’12, “the most challenging part of the brigade was providing health services while at the same time speaking in my second language, Spanish.” Though knowledge of the Spanish language is not a requirement for membership in MEDLIFE, the students who had some Spanish found it invaluable.
While the brigades usually run one to two weeks, MEDLIFE staff follow up with patients, arranging and performing medical tests and surgeries as needed. For the Claremont students who took part in this year’s brigade in Peru, it was a Spring Break well spent. Back in Claremont, the students were pleased to tune in to the congressional vote on health care reform.
Interested Claremont students can learn more about MEDLIFE by contacting next year’s chapter president Gina Newman or by visiting www.medlifeweb.org.