MSU students observe tropical medicine in DR
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EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Ali Daneshvar doesn't have his medical degree, but that didn't matter to the people he brought medicine to in a refugee camp in the Dominican Republic.
"It was basically a garbage dump with a bunch of huts with roofs made of tin," the Michigan State University osteopathic medicine graduate student said of the camp near the Haitian border.
Daneshvar was one of 18 students who visited the Dominican Republic on May 9-15 to observe tropical medicine. The trip was led by Reza Nassiri, director of the university's Institute of International Health and professor of osteopathic medicine.
The institute works with the College of Osteopathic Medicine and coordinates joint research opportunities for faculty and medical students. It suggests partnerships with foreign universities and hospitals and the dean's office of the college approves them.
Fourth-year medical students can study at partner institutions for up to four weeks for an elective, or they can do medical research overseas for up to a year with the dean's approval. The medical mission programs last one or two weeks during university breaks and always have faculty supervision, Nassiri said.
Dean William Strampel of the College of Osteopathic Medicine said most students who went on the trips probably wouldn't decide to work overseas.
"The real goal behind that is to get people used to the idea that there are differences out there," Strampel said.
During the trip to the Dominican Republic, students observed an emergency room, gynecology ward, children's hospital, diabetes hospital, HIV-AIDS clinic, Haitian refugee camp and leper colony, Nassiri said.
Alisan Fathalizadeh, a human medicine graduate student, said the students also did physicals in a rural clinic. The students divided into groups of two or three, talked to patients and checked their vital signs and then confirmed their diagnoses with a local physician before writing prescriptions. She said they treated about 150 people the first day and 100 the second.
Strampel said that sort of experience would make them better doctors.
"(Working with less technology) increases their clinical diagnostic skills and their ability to talk to people," Strampel said.
Nassiri said one of the goals of the institute's trips is to help students gain "cultural competency," an understanding of and respect for other cultures. He said culture influences views on health, treatments and interactions between doctors and patients.
"Medicine and culture, they go together," he said. "It is always helpful for your practice to understand your patient's culture."
Fathalizadeh said an understanding of culture is important for all doctors, whether or not they work overseas.
"The United States is a land of immigrants, and it will continue to be," she said. "There's good and bad in every culture so take the best parts of all of them."
Strampel said treating the kinds of diseases students saw in the Dominican Republic could be relevant in the United States, because two people in Virginia were infected by malaria after being bitten by a mosquito that had bitten someone who traveled to Africa.
"We're 12 hours away from everywhere in the world by plane," he said.
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Information from: The State News, http://www.statenews.com
