I plan to volunteer with The Floating Doctors for 2 weeks from July 14-28 in Bocas del Toro, Panama as a physician and clinical instructor. I will be working in remote, rural communities serving the Ngäbe-Buglé people of Panama. As an infectious disease physician I will assist in diagnosing and treating several infectious diseases including leishmaniasis, acute watery diarrhea, HIV, hepatitis and vector borne illnesses. I will not only be working in the outpatient clinics to diagnose and treat patients, I will also be holding workshops and teaching local healthcare workers on how to diagnose and treat these infections on their own. I will also be teaching, instructing and mentoring medical volunteers from the US on these processes as well.
Each day, the Floating Doctors travels from base camp clinic to 25 different rural community clinics by boat who would not otherwise have access to healthcare in this area. They treat both chronic and infectious diseases in adults and children.
I will be working with several other volunteers from around the world as well as with different levels of expertise and training.
I will also be researching the feasibility of an HIV prevalence study in this community as no such data yet exists. The number of people living with HIV in this community is still unknown.
Since 2011 Floating Doctors have built a permanent, sustainable rural health service and community development assistance program in Panama serving the Ngäbe-Buglé communities.
They deploy mobile clinics by boat, packhorse or on foot to remote underserved areas, where they conduct ongoing health services and community development projects.
The programs cover thousands of square miles of jungle-covered mountain and mangrove mazes in which they are often the only medical, dental, or veterinary service available.
I am looking forward to working with this organization because of their unique approach to solving the problem of accessibility to health services for this community.
Anywhere from 40-130 patients are seen in the clinics per day for a wide spectrum of illnesses from preventative maintenance to chronic diseases to acute infectious diseases.
These communities live in remote areas, with poor access to supplies and services and are vulnerable to health crises because of their remoteness. I hope that by teaching some skills and transferring some of my medical knowledge to local health practitioners the impact of the work done while on mission, will continue after I have left.
For me personally, the impact of working in the field with limited resources and diagnostics, forces me to heighten my clinical skills which
I volunteer with Floating Doctors in Bocas del Toro, Panama serving thr communities of the Ngäbe-Buglé people in their indigenous and self-sovreigned comarcas. We delivered primary care, pediatric, OB and preventive care including deworming, malnutrition assistance and family planning. It was a challenging mission working in remote areas with little to no access to electricity, running water or phone, bit it was an incredible experience to learn, to teach, to serve and to work alongside like-minded healthcare professionals.
