Ate Logo Timor

My summer in Timor has come to an end.  I am happy to say that during my time at the Bairo Pite Clinic I did meet most of my learning goals.  I’ve talked in my previous posts about the DTS program and how rewarding it has been to see how a program is implemented almost from the very beginning.  I’m ecstatic to say that the program is up and running and is already reaping the rewards of all the hard work staff at the clinic have put into it.

The other facet of my internship at the BPC that helped me meet my learning goals, which I haven’t spoken about yet, is the clinical side of my experience.  Though I’ve always been interested in medicine and health care in general, I’ve never been certain about whether or not I want to actually practice medicine.  One of my hopes for this summer was that my time at the clinic would inform my future career choice and I am happy to say that it has done just that.   This summer I observed a number of fantastic doctors as well as medical students at work.  It’s admirable how dedicated they all are to trying to deliver the best care they can despite all the obvious obstacles they have to overcome on a day to day basis.  I learned a lot about the compassion and patience needed in order to be a good physician which I’m sure is a constant no matter what setting you’re in (developed vs developing country for example).  However, I also learned a lot about practicing medicine in a developing country where every step of obtaining health care is more challenging than it would be here in the United States. For example, the difficulty begins with accessing care in the first place, to obtaining a diagnosis, to actually having the resources to treat a condition once it has been diagnosed, to then completing treatment obtained.  I’ve seen and experienced myself how frustrating it is to have to fight for your patient to get an x-ray or a CT scan and to fail or to not be able to help a patient who is in such terrible condition because he/she did not have adequate access to care to begin with.  There were instances where it didn’t matter how much we wanted to help, we simply could not.  In the end you just do the best you can, which is what I saw the physicians and med students do at the clinic.

After this experience, I am more determined than ever to do the best I can in my studies in order to achieve my career goals and also to help PP1 grow and develop as a club.  After this internship I feel I want to gain more experience both in clinical medicine in the U.S and in other developing countries.  Perhaps I’ll look for an internship at a hospital or clinic and apply for health-related programs abroad for my upcoming gap year.  For anyone who may go to Timor to work in health care I would advise they pay close attention to the national health system there and why it is exactly that Timor is struggling with such low health outcomes in many different areas of health.  I think anyone in this field should at least consider an experience abroad that will help broaden your perspective of health care and help learn what makes one system more efficient than another.

All in all, my concept of social justice as it pertains to health care equity has been strongly reinforced.  We know health disparities are present within the U.S and other developed nations but they are less striking (though not less important) compared to global health disparities   I think that the most important thing to keep in mind in order to address this issue is that no life is more important than another.  As long as you believe that some people deserve better care than others, health disparities will continue to prevail.

This, is a short documentary filmed during my time at the clinic.  It does not adequately represent all of the work done at the clinic or go too much into the struggles within the Timorese health system as a whole but it does give an idea of some of the cases the BPC encounters.