RCSA Clinic

Today I participated in a clinic just outside of Portsmouth and as part of an assignment I had to write a reflection on my experience. Instead of just rewriting everything in the form of a blog, I'll just share with you what I wrote about for my assignment:

"On Sunday, October 27^th, 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.