Reflection Paper

Flying into Toronto Pearson International Airport, I reflected on my extraordinary adventure overseas. I had been on a volunteer international medical mission across Vietnam, Nepal, and India over the last four months, immersed in the local culture while shadowing surgeons, anesthesiologists, emergency doctors, and pediatricians. Working closely with physicians, I took patient vitals and history, cleaned and bandaged wounds, observed surgeries, discussed anatomy and physiology, and recalled the hundreds of stories that patients have shared with me at the bedside--I relished every moment of it. My experiences taught me the immense level of responsibility, the importance of communication and collaboration, and even an appreciation for the limits of medicine. My time abroad helped reaffirm my desire to pursue medicine.

To illustrate, I have demonstrated my commitment and dedication to helping others by becoming a back office assistant. I embodied compassion and exhibited linguistic and cultural competency by successfully assisting physicians with patient care and administrative duties. My close interaction with a diverse patient population and healthcare personnel has taught me to enhance coordination of care and to improve patient outcomes. As a result, my passion for serving others has been ignited and I am ever more determined to someday return to Vietnam – this time, not as a student volunteer, but as a physician assistant (PA).

-Embarked on a medical mission to provide free healthcare services, including primary care, OB/GYN, dentistry, and optometry, to Vietnam’s poverty-stricken villages

Groggily stumbling into the kitchen, I was met with nine pairs of eyes reminding me I wasn’t in America anymore. Eleven days ago, my team and I had flown into Port-au-Prince and driven to Jacmel, directed by Angel Wings International, a local organization that worked to deliver healthcare in Haiti. I received the run-down for the day: we were heading West toward a rural clinic located in Baie d’Orange. Climbing into a musty truck bed, I noticed a crew of dentists, doctors, and pharmacists accompanying us, signifying the most important day in our three-week-long trip. The truck revved into action, racing in Jacmel’s dusty streets, past the swelling river, through winding mountain passes, stopping at a tattered USAID tent that covered a burgeoning crowd of hundreds. Scanning the crowd returned the gaze of scared men, women, and children whose lives could be drastically changed through proper checkups and treatment.

Growing up in Iraq, I endured my homeland’s journey through a difficult period in its history. No one was unaffected: civilians’ lives were disrupted by years of wars and detrimental economic sanctions, but amid the destruction, I saw the good in my community. I witnessed a massive humanitarian effort led by healthcare professionals, as physicians worked to meet the medical needs in my town. My dreams were shaped by this exposure, and ever since, I’ve hoped to join these doctors in their efforts.

A significant volunteer experience that augmented my leadership skills and expanded my understanding of medicine was at the Honolulu Harbor Medical Clinic sponsored by the Seafarer’s Ministry. The Seafarer’s Ministry provides spiritual, emotional, and social support for the undocumented foreign fishermen docked at Honolulu Harbor. The clinic began with few volunteers and two doctors who provided medical care to undocumented foreign fishermen from a box of supplies out of a truck. This expanded my capacity to understanding, to humbly accept circumstances and encouraged me to practice medicine with culturally sensitivity.

As I walked into Bangkhram hospital as an international shawoing volunteer, I was filled with uncertainty. Working as a volunteer in this rural hospital located in central Thailand was an amazing opportunity, but I also had millions of questions in my mind: Will the patients be receptive of me being an outsider? Is this truly the career path I would like to take? These hesitations stopped as I interacted with patients suffering from chronic mental illnesses, watched newborns receive breathing treatments in the emergency department and witnessed a woman as she received a pap smear for the first time in 22 years. By the end of my time in Thailand, these experinces allowed meto confirmed my interest in clinical medicine.

In my life, I have experienced the incredible work healthcare professionals can provide and how lack of access to care can lead to dire consequences. Growing up in my village in Bangladesh, I was first hand witness to this lack of adequate healthcare. I had to watch my sisters deliver babies without training, I had to witness an aunt suffer in an agony due to the lack of adequate healthcare facility, but my most vivid experience of this lack of healthcare came when I was the victim of an acid attack and had to wait three days to receive medical attention. Due to this attack, I have third degree burn on approximately ninety percent of my body, and left me blind in one eye. Due to the lack of adequate health care in Bangladesh, two organizations, “Healing the Children” and “Naripokkho”, decided to provide me with medical care in the United States. It was there, that I was eventually exposed to all the wonderful work that could be done by doctors and other healthcare professionals. I have had approximately thirty reconstructive surgeries to repair my nose, eyelids and part of my forehead that was perforated through my skull. These experiences have inspired me to want to become a doctor, with the hope of giving back to my local community in Bangladesh, United States and globally.

During college, I also had an opportunity to shadow a group of medical professionals on a summer medical relief trip to Peru. On the trip, I realized life was so much bigger than my self-contained bubble of worries and concerns. Students from The University of Illinois’ Christian healthcare association aided a team composed of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and therapists to run free clinics in Peru. I experienced first-hand how powerful it was when different health professionals worked together towards a common goal. My initial wonderment of the mountainous landscape was quickly put aside overshadowed after I realized the team did not have the resources to meet the needs of the large mass of local Quechua people that had gathered at our clinic. It was heartbreaking to witness problems that were otherwise so easily treatable in America. As resources dwindled, I noticed a therapist who was teaching proper lifting techniques to prevent injuries. He noted the prevalence of lower back pain largely due to the heavy labor a majority of the local men did for a living. This was significant as the physical therapist not only treated the symptoms, but rather empowered the local people to better themselves daily. I witnessed people being inspired to care

In many places around the world today, people are existing in carnage, as seen in the films “Living in Emergency” and “5 Broken Cameras”. Within all of these films, there are various instances where people are simply normalized with the war and violence happening around them. Looking at the film “Living in Emergency”, one can learn a lot about the normalization of war to people, as the documentary follows the plights of medical professionals within the organization “Doctors Without Borders”. Set in Congo and Liberia, both which are dealing with conflict and who have little access to proper medical facilities, the film bounces between the stories of four doctors as they struggle to provide proper emergency care to a large number of helpless people. The doctors highlight that they are often “psychologically tired” during their missions, and one veteran doctor who wants out of the mission tells that he often is most content when he diagnoses a patient and knows that there is nothing that he can do to help them, as this takes the pressure off of him and makes his work easier to handle (0:10). Many doctors highlight that death becomes part of the work they are in, as they try their best in all situations, but with limited medical supplies and severe cases of disease and injuries that have gone without treatment for years, death is common (0:20). The film flips between scenes of post-war Liberia and the warzone that is Congo, as 4 million have been killed in the DCR since the start of this war (0:18). The work is becoming more and more dangerous for the doctors placed in Congo, as they no longer can go out at night as 5 doctors were almost killed by muggings and the general endangerment of a warzone (0:20). In Liberia, the casualties are so severe that a veteran doctor says that he no longer has the “stomach for this work”, and this shows that even after multiple placements, this doctor is still not desensitized to the ugliness that he sees (0:35). In this film, we really see the impact of poverty on all aspect of these civilian’s lives, and such shows the normality of horrific conditions, which once again leads to the question of should the United States be in charge of fixing these issues?

I was born in a small town in Sudan, where there are limited resources for people to receive medical care. When my grandfather required hospitalization for severe dehydration and the experience of pain and the hardship of travel just for him to receive IV fluid and seeing him subsequently improving thereafter made me realize how the doctors can have a great impact upon someone’s life, not just their physical self but their emotional self as well. My grandfather falling ill made me question the fact that without our health we are nothing. I therefore decided to go into the field of medicine to better people’s lives.

As an Arab-American and former Iraqi refugee, I believe I have a unique view on health care. Witnessing my physician father at work in Iraq and working closely with physicians as a scribe in the U.S. have allowed me to integrate two different approaches to medicine into one unified view. In times of war, few resources are available to patients other than the comforting presence of a physician, while health care in the U.S. is equipped with readily available resources and research. Having experienced both settings enables me to understand the two sides of medicine: to utilize the gifts of modern science, but never forget the power of compassion. Due to my displacements as a refugee I have had to change schools every academic year starting from seventh grade until college.

I still remember the night I received the call and rushed to the gynecology ward. There she lay, a young girl of about 16-17 moaning in pain with blood oozing out of her vagina. It had been slit by a razor, by her spouse. Feeling dumbstruck, I secured an IV access, ordered for blood transfusion and started suturing the wound as a desperate measure to stop the bleeding. She fared well and I was relieved. However, it was just another day in a series of regular days in rural Nepal. Domestic abuse, migrant workers suffering from AIDS, road traffic accidents with casualties flooding the emergency department, wards full of elderly with COPD, children with pneumonia, intoxicated and belligerent patients, adolescents with organophosphate poisoning were everyday problems. Having been brought up in a family in urban Nepal, these encounters exposed me to the harsh realities of an underdeveloped society and the effect they had on people 's health. I started seeing life in a new light, with a broader perspective and lesser complaints.

That Monday I found my dream! It was the unforgettable day during my internship when I realized that Public Health was not just my interest, but my calling. Before that Monday, I had some vague idea of a career in health promotion. Then I met Lal, a Bhutanese refugee who had spent almost 20 years in the refugee camps of Nepal. That Monday, my vague idea blossomed into a firm desire to advocate for vulnerable populations such as refugees, displaced persons, victims of human trafficking, and more, so that individuals such as Lal do not get lost in the chaos of conflict, or stymied by systemic barriers everywhere, including their place of safety.

That Monday I found my dream! It was an unforgettable day during my internship when I realized that Public Health was not just my interest, but my calling. Before that Monday, I had some vague idea of a career in health promotion. Then I met Lal, a Bhutanese refugee who had spent almost 20 years in the refugee camps of Nepal. That Monday, the vague idea blossomed into a firm desire to advocate for vulnerable populations such as refugees, displaced persons, victims of human trafficking, and more. Individuals such as Lal should not get lost in the chaos of conflict, or stymied by systemic barriers everywhere, including their place of safety.