This will be a transformative journey to underserved communities in and around Otavalo, Ecuador. We will work along side Tandana Foundation, an organization committed to long-term, community-driven initiatives in education, health, environment, and cultural preservation. This medical mission's team is designed for dedicated healthcare professionals and pre-PA students eager to make an imPAct in the lives of those in need. We will learn about medical practices in a different culture, and provide service to a community based project in addition to adding capacity to local healthcare providers.
Rural and underserved Ecuadorian nationals. In rural highland Ecuador, access to care is limited and often happens only at certain times. We will add capacity to the services provided by the Tandana Foundation to reach this population.
We hope to help provide care to an underserved community as well as to provide cultural competence exposure to newly admitted PA students. By exposing them to a different healthcare system, their perspective will broaden, and they will see how resources limitations do not need to lessen impact.
During our time in highland Ecuador, we worked with rural communities in and around Otavalo. One particularly memorable day was when we did a mobile clinic in the community of Guachingero, where we did evaluation of over 50 patients in 3.5 hours. We had a dentist and three primary care providers, and we also did eye exams, blood pressure and blood sugar screens and ultrasound evaluation for any concerns where point of care ultrasound could be used. This community is a 45 minute bus ride to the nearest public health clinic, so the mobile clinic provides important access, particularly for those with limited transportation. Through our evaluation process, we were also able to connect them with higher levels of care and provide transportation if something more complicated was identified. For my students, this day was really impactful, to see the lack of access first hand, and to be able to provide care to these patients.
