The Cascade Medical Team has been traveling to rural Guatemala with HELPS International for several years. I will be joining them this year and will be a part of the OR team. Specifically, I will be performing free gynecologic surgery in a rural town for those with only scant medical care. The first week of the trip will be spent doing Pre-operative visits with patients to select them and prepare them for surgery. The last 1.5 weeks will be spent doing surgeries (including hysterectomies, cystectomies, etc.
Rural Guatemalans
I suspect that this will be impactful for me in many ways. It will expose me to a new culture that I have not previously been immersed in, it will allow me to continue to improve my Spanish (especially medical Spanish), and help me to better understand the impact I can have abroad as a physician.
Many of the people living in rural Guatemala have only scarce access to medical care. The Cascade Medical Team (facilitated by HELPS International) has been providing medical care to the rural communities of Guatemala for over a decade. I was lucky enough to spend several weeks in Santa Cruz del Quiché, Guatemala with the Cascade Medical Team screening women for surgery, setting up a field hospital, and performing surgery. As a medical team we performed 96 surgeries (gyn, general, and plastics). We were hosted at a local military school and our clinics, ORs, PACU, and postop ward were set up in classrooms. It was awesome to help this population in a tangible way. Thank you, Doximity for facilitating my travels!
