Medical Mission in Mexico
The Community Medicine Rotation Goes International!

Last December third year resident, Cheryl Vera- Burkhalter, MD along with residency faculty physicians Tricia Elliott, MD (family medicine faculty and community medicine rotation director), Debra Cutler, MD (ambulatory pediatrics) and our own family medicine clinic's nurse supervisor, Darla Espinoza, RN, took part in a medical mission in Mexico.

Dr. Vera-Burkhalter describes her experience.

Community Medicine is a 3-year longitudinal curriculum experience to help residents develop the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and tools to enable the integration of the concepts of community health, advocacy and intervention in future practice. Forthcoming Additional topics include the award winning Community Medicine Project, information on upcoming Procedure Workshops, the MBA program, and highlights of our alumni. troy.tucker@kelsey-seybold.com

Traveling to Mexico for a Medical Mission Trip, I was not sure what to expect for the next three days. I knew we would set up a clinic in a community and we would be seeing patients from some of the more disadvantaged neighborhoods in Matamoros, Mexico. I had been to Mexico on several mission trips with my church when I was a teen; however, this experience was entirely different, simply because my role was to be a physician and not just a volunteer helping with local church projects. I was excited to be part of a team going to provide medical assistance to those who might not have access to any healthcare at all.

We drove from Houston and arrived in Matamoros in the dark of the early evening. It was the coldest day of the year and we felt the brunt of the cold temperatures. Our housing was located in a local church’s classroom wing which had open patios and hallways, so our only barrier to the cold wind was an interior door to a room without heat. We slept on air mattresses and had a community bathroom with no hot water. Our hosts were cordial and supplied us with homemade meals at the church.

Our first day started off with some confusion because we had to change the location of the clinic because the roads were too muddy to reach our original destination. We set up clinic in a local church in a middle-class section of Matamoros. Our exam room was a church classroom, without an exam table or much else in the form of furniture. We fashioned an exam table out of old doors laid across two small desks. We saw infants up to geriatric patients in their 70’s. It was a whirlwind of activity. There was a physician from Mexico who helped us with supplies and acted as the pharmacist. In addition there was a dentist from Mexico who set up his own exam area and performed cleaning, extractions and other interventions. At the end of the first day, I knew I had made the right decision to come on this trip. I was thinking about disease, diagnosis and treatment in an entirely different way because our resources were so limited and I knew our follow-up was nonexistent and we didn’t have labs to rely on.

Our second day also started off with some confusion because of the change in location secondary to the poor condition of the roads. We didn’t want to get stuck in mud which was a real possibility. We were a little more tired but anxious to see what kind of patients and diseases we would encounter. A local family allowed us to use their home to set up a clinic in a neighborhood with where most people were employed by a local factory. They worked long shifts of 10-12 hours with heavy sewing machinery. The clinic didn’t take long to have patients waiting to be seen, despite the cold weather outside. We set up our exam room (for three physicians and the dentist) in a small 10 X 15 foot room. I still don’t know how we all fit in this room! I was able to see patients from all age ranges and saw patients with chronic diseases, acute infections including intestinal parasites, gynecological issues, endocrine problems and a patient with Muscular Dystrophy which was a new diagnosis for him and his family.

The trip concluded with a dinner out at a nice restaurant and a long drive home. The distance between Matamoros and Houston is large but the difference in the everyday existence of the patients we saw was even further from what we experience here. Seeing the poverty of some of the people was still disturbing for me, but the disparity was less apparent because I could see the sameness between the patients I am used to seeing here in Houston and the patients I saw there. The trip was a great experience and I look forward to going again.