"On Sunday, October 27th, 2013, I participated in the RCSA Health Clinic that was held in Toucari, Dominica. I, along with approximately thirty other schoolmates, left early in the morning to set up for our clinic outside of St. John and St. Lewis Church. The clinic featured stations for HPI, blood pressure, blood glucose, height and weight, vision, as well as a station for heart and lung examination. After setting up, the entire group of Ross students attended mass with the local congregation. Afterwards, about 75 patrons of the church attended the clinic.
Since this
was the second community clinic that I have done during my time here at Ross, I
came into this clinic with some preconceived ideas about how it was going to
go. But much to my surprise, most of those assumptions were wrong. The first
clinic that I attended at Ross was located in Dublanc, which featured a much
larger population than Toucari. During the Dublanc clinic, I worked at the HPI
station and remember being busy the entire three hours that the clinic was
open. It didn’t provide me the opportunity to get to really talk to people and listen
to their health concerns, but instead forced me to move quickly through the HPI
and shuffle the patients along to the next station. I suppose this was due to
the sheer amount of people waiting in the line for the clinic. On the other
hand, the Toucari clinic was a much more relaxed atmosphere and I think it was
mainly because there were less people waiting in line for our service. But less
people wasn’t necessarily a bad thing; in fact, it gave me more of a chance to
talk to each individual patient and elicit their concerns. For the Toucari
clinic, I worked at the blood pressure station. Blood pressure is not something
that I am completely 100% confident in doing, so that’s why I signed up to work
at that station. As everyone always says, “practice makes perfect”, and
practice is exactly what I needed.
Besides
practicing my skills of actually taking blood pressure, talking to patients and
discussing their health lifestyles was a successful component of the clinic for
me as well. I tried to ask the typical questions you normally do before taking
blood pressure and it was interesting to me that I always received similar
answers. For example: when I would ask, “Do you have a history of high blood
pressure?”, most people would respond by saying something like, “Just barely”
or “It’s just a little high”. As you probably already know, the majority of
local people here in Dominica do have high blood pressure, which is a result of
many factors including their diet, exercise habits, and culture. With that
being the case, I was able to do a lot of counseling. I was able to tell many
of my patients about what the blood pressure measurement actually means and how
everyone has the tools to control it, mainly through diet and exercise. It’s
one thing to measure a blood pressure and report a number, but it’s a totally
different experience if you can analyze that number and give advice to others
on how that number can change. I guess that was the biggest difference between
the two clinics that I have participated in thus far. The first was more about
completing the task and moving people along, whereas the second clinic centered
around the idea of helping people change their lifestyle. The Toucari clinic
was one of the first times in Dominica where I have felt more like a teacher
than a student. And that was a good feeling.
Overall, I
think the clinic was very successful. It’s just astonishing to me to hear from
local individuals that our student-driven health clinics are sometimes the only
medical attention they receive all year. I find that a sad thing to hear.
However, in their eyes, our student health clinics do mean the world to them
and can influence their lives. One aspect of the RCSA health clinics that I
find absolutely empowering is the fact that we attend mass with the local
congregation. It’s one thing to put on a free health clinic for random people,
but it’s a totally different experience when you worship, sing, laugh, and pray
with those individuals. I think that aspect of the RCSA health clinic makes it
all the more special. One thing that I won’t be able to forget about this
community clinic experience was when the congregation made us Ross students
stand and they began to sing to us. They sang a song that said, “We love you
and we mean it from the bottom of our hearts.” I don’t think I’ve ever been
more humbled in my life."
Until next week.
