tuesday, april 13, 2004
doctors beyond borders
the university daily kansan 7A
CONTINUED FROM 6A
"We've made a commitment to these girls, and they are counting on us until they get out of high school," Jenab said.
They chose the girls from about 15 middle school and high school girls from the Xinyi area. The program has two criteria. First, the girls must be doing well in school. Gao said they must rank in the top 10 to 20 girls in their grade, which can have from 50 to 200 students. Second, they must be in desperate need of financial support and would have no other choice than to drop out of school without the scholarship.
Gao received a letter at the beginning of last year from Jin Song, one of the girls the group sponsors, who is in her first year of middle school. After Gao translated the letter, it read:
"When my father puts my tuition money into my hands I cannot help but cry. However, when I put my honor certificates into my parents' hands I see smiles appearing on their faces — it's just like the smile when I make a cup of hot tea for them. I want to keep working hard at school, to obtain more honors to pay back for their hard work, to take care of them more in the future and to keep the smiles on their faces."
Song later wrote that she would work hard to gain knowledge so she could repay her parents' and the group's generosity.
Guatemala
The International Outreach Program is expanding with another trip to South America this summer where a team of the University's medical students and surgeons will take over a hospital for a week.
Doug Cowan, a first-year medical student from Overland Park, is organizing the trip. He is planning to take eight to 10 students along with three other doctors from the University.
They will take over the all-volunteer Hermano Pedro Hospital in Antigua during the first week of August. The hospital relies on teams of doctors who perform surgery and practice family medicine for one week at a time.
The team will take an ear, nose and throat specialist to perform
"We're doing a small role in providing them medical care they would never get without us. You don't come back thinking about the money."
Doug Cowan
Doug Cowan
Overland Park first-year medical student
Second-year medical students Erin Barnes, Wichita, and Michele Bennett, Lawrence, practiced inserting IVs into each other's arms at the University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City. The students prepared for their spring break trip to Belize by learning proper medical techniques.
surgeries that are already in high demand there, such as removing patients' tonsils.
Cowan said the hospital charged the doctors a one-time fee of $300 for housing patients' families for the week and $50 for each surgery they perform.
Cowan's goal is to raise $25,000 through donations and a golf tournament fundraiser in May. The money will cover the patient's housing and treatment costs in addition to the cost of medical supplies.
And there's one other fee: the plane ticket. Cowan plans to apply for student travel grants and overseas work grants to help subsidize the cost.
He said it will cost about $1,000 per student to get there. But to him, the cost is not important.
"We're doing a small role in providing them medical care they would never get without us," Cowan said. "You don't come back thinking about the money."
He said these patients have no chance of ever receiving the surgery without volunteers like his group.
Cowan said he plans to be a surgeon one day and to continue caring for people in underserved areas.
Making a difference
"I started this program out of a love for international health." Jenab said. "And I know every
The program is a product of one medical student's passion for helping others. The members Jenab has encountered have helped make this vision into a lasting program at the University. Each person brings something to the table, said Vincent Hayes, medical director for the program. He said there was no way Jenab could have organized this by herself, and she agrees.
person in this group cares just as much about these people as I do."
much about these problems.
As a medical student, Hayes said he was involved in organizations on campus, but he said he never looked outside his community, let alone the country. He said he was astounded by the program's drive to go beyond the regular medical program and its ability to cross new boundaries.
"Personally, I couldn't have done it as a medical student," Haves said.
Hayes said.
In the 18 months that the 40 members have been together, they have managed to find the time and earn the money to make a difference in the world, all while tests and everything else that makes up the complicated life of a medical student. As Cowan said, they may be playing a small role in someone's life, but it does seem to make a big difference.
-Edited by Nikki Nugent
Katherine Mayer, Wichita second-year medical student, and Michael Wagner, emergency room technician, demonstrated how to wrap a splint to a group of second-year medical students.
Megan True/Kansan
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