Global Health

Sara and I are so proud of this team. They have been working so hard and well together. They truly are a group of servant leaders. At Bateyes Esperanza on Monday, January 9th, we had the privilege of serving 103 beautiful people. We were working alongside a Dominican dentist, Haitian/Dominican interpreters, a church team from Rhode Island, an internal medicine physician from GA who practices at the VA, a family practice physician on a grant exploring ways to help service/mission groups communicate and collaborate on work in the Dominican Republic. MGH-IHP students took on 5 United States...

Tuesday, January 10, 2017 Bateye Quisquella By Muni Adebimpe It's day two! Our amazing group rode all the way to Bayete Quisquella where we were able to service about 85 individuals. Highlights from the day included a man with a dislocated shoulder, a woman with lymphedema, a child with pneumonia, and a variety of individuals that presented with high blood pressure. All these individuals were managed and treated appropriately by the MGH-IHP nurses team alongside the medical doctors (who were Haitian and Dominican) and our very own Sara Smoller, an acute care nurse practitioner. Moreover,...

Sunday 1/8/17: Nadia Carter The Dominican Republic is a mostly Christian country. Driving through the cities, there are several churches within blocks of each other, with services in Spanish as well as Haitian creole. Additionally, many walls were decorated with passages from the Bible about Jesus Cristo (Jesus Christ) and Dios (God). Given that we were here with a Christian mission, our experience was immersed with prayer and moments where we thanked God for the opportunity to be here to help. Many of the people in our group come from diverse religious/spiritual backgrounds, but were very...

Ok, maybe it's a few more... 1. The cordiality of our hosts at Maluti Adventist College. 2. Being asked whether we slept well. 3. Being asked whether we’re warm and having our hosts find additional heaters for us. Our precious paraffin heater 4. The wonderful vegetarian meals cooked for us by the Cafeteria Ladies. The team enjoys the breakfast smorgasbord. 5. Their kindness to us when we requested essential bathroom supplies. 6. The beautiful voices of the church choir and the churchgoers as they sang their hymns. 7. The kindness of the church attendees who shared their prayer books with us...

Ever welcoming and refreshing with its fortified mountainous air, Lesotho has proven to be every bit as charming as one could hope for. The people we have met in the last 24 hours have been courteous and hospitable, jolly, funny, intelligent, and with character carried every bit as cooly and breezy as the rolling hills around us. We've already learned quite a bit (including the South African/Lesotho handshake; apparently that's a thing). How much they will learn from us? That has yet to be seen. This morning we awoke refreshed, ready and excited to begin our first full day at the Maluti...

My Saturday started by waking up at 4:30 AM to go check my email. I was waiting for a message that needed to be answered by midnight EST (6:00 AM our time). Since my computer doesn’t connect to the available Wi-Fi in the house, I have to walk down the path and sit in front of the administration building where the router is. I was bundled up in two fleeces and a winter jacket, grabbed my headlamp and headed out into the dark. I could have been back in Boston, enjoying the beginning of the three-day Memorial weekend in the warmth of spring. Instead, I’m typing away under the stars, my hands...

Dumela friends & family! We wanted to write to let you know that we arrived safely and are really excited to begin our wonderful collaboration with the Maluti Adventist College here in Lesotho. Our host colleagues were waiting for us at the airport in Maseru to give us a warm welcome and have been incredibly hospitable to us. We made our first purchases when we realized that the conversion plugs that we brought with us were not ones that would work and were in need of new ones. Our friends kindly took us to Pioneer Mall, one of two shopping malls in the country, the largest one in the...

Welcome to the Lesotho Scholars Blog site! We will be going to Lesotho on May 20th to share some ideas with our colleagues there. I know we will also learn a great deal from our colleagues about the challenges they face in providing health care and in educating their nursing students. We're very excited to be going and meeting our colleagues in Lesotho and look forward to your responses to our posts.

As part of our rotations, or "postings," as they're called at Manipal University, we had the opportunity to observe treatments in the Department of Ayurveda at Kasturba Medical Center. Ayurveda, an ancient and traditional Indian medicine, is used with one basic intention-- the prevention of illness. The word "Ayurveda" translates directly to "life science," and has been the primary medical practice of many Indians for thousands of years. Currently, approximately 65-70% of India's population (particularly those from rural areas) rely on Ayurveda for their primary health care needs, as it is...

Bylakuppe One of the great things about our trip to India is learning about different religions. We have been so lucky to visit many temples during our stay in Manipal. From visiting these temples we are able to learn a little about each religion and the history behind the temples we visit. Karkala We were able to take a day trip to Karkala where we went to the 1000 Pillars Temple and the famous statue of Gommateshwara—both are associated with Jainism. Jainism is an Indian religion that promotes extreme nonviolence towards all living beings. Those who practice the Jain religion follow three...