Our medical mission in Peru began Monday the 25th. Our team has six medical students from stony brook university, three medical students from UConn and a nursing student from Pace Univeristy. The physicians on the trip include a pediatrician, oncologist, nephrologist, pulmonologist, critical care physicians and a doctor of pharmacy. Our first day began in Maras, around 30 minutes from our home base of Urubamba. We saw approximately 100 patients and provided pediatric services, general medicine, and conducted ultra sounds. The UConn students tested patients for both H. pylori infections and diabetes. Patients who tested positive were then treated appropriately with medication and counseling. The next day was spent at Qotowuincho, where we saw around 120 patients. Between Wednesday and Friday, our team spent our days in the town of Ollantaytambo. We worked alongside the municipality’s ministry of health which provided us with tents and a trailer, as well as media advertisements to alert the populations of each town about our upcoming clinic. In Ollantaytambo we saw over 130 patients each day, many of whom were part of the indigenous population of Peru and only spoke Quechua. We had two translators who worked tirelessly to translate dialogue from Quechua to Spanish so that we could understand their complaints and do our best to treat these individuals.
Among pediatric patients the most common complaints were the common cold, parasite related illnesses, and parents were counseled on nutrition and dental hygiene for their children. Adult patients suffered from general body aches and many chronic headaches. Through speaking to our patients, we found out that many did not consume adequate amounts of water because of the inconvenience that it posed to them while they worked throughout the day.
This years medical mission was made a success by the amount of patients we were able to treat with both educational counseling and medications such as antibiotics and anti-parasitics. It was also a success based on the willingness to work hard and come together as a team displayed by all of our participants on this year’s Promise to Peru mission.
