The 2 months I spent in Peru was a life-changing experience and the memories will certain live on for a long time! This was my first time ever in Latin America, and it certainly will not be my last! I am incredibly grateful to the generous financial support provided from Medical Missionary news, and the Lord certainly answered many prayers over firstly making this elective possible and secondly making everything run smoothly.
My elective was split into two main sections. The first was a hospital placement studying Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine, whilst also attending language classes and helping at community health fairs. The second part involved working in a primary care clinic on a boat on the river Amazon (essentially a GP service on water!).
Whilst in Peru, I managed to travel to 4 different cities in the country and see the diverse environments that Peru has to offer. This included the chaos and busyness of Lima, before exploring the historic centre and mountainous landscapes of Cusco. I was then based in Trujillo, a smaller northern city on the coast and then finally the city of Iquitos in the Amazon jungle.
My hospital placement was in Infectious Diseases (ID) and tropical medicine at the Hospital de Alta Complejidad Virgen de la Puerta in Trujillo. The hospital is run by Peru’s public health service called Es Salud. The days would commence on the hospital ward round, where the ID team would clerk-in new patients, review existing patients and follow up on current treatment regimens, ensuring patients were either able to be discharged home or were up to date on their current treatment plan. Following this, time would be spent on the stewardship round, which would involve going to the A&E department along with other specialties, to ensure that general patients were on the best antibiotics to optimise their treatment, avoid over-prescription of antibiotics and reduce the chance of the build-up of antibiotic resistance.
During my placement, I encountered patients with a wide range of diseases and infections which wouldn’t be commonly seen in the UK. Some of the most common ward presentations included dengue fever, severe forms of tuberculosis and osteomyelitis. I was able to improve my medical Spanish and clinical involvement throughout this hospital placement, including being regularly grilled by consultants on different classes of antibiotics and other treatment plans. Working alongside the ID team, allowed for great opportunities to improve essential future knowledge that is less regularly taught in medical school, by being able to see for myself example cases and context that I've only ever previously seen in textbooks.
Afternoons would take place at the language school, which consisted of conversation, grammar and medical Spanish classes. The first few days spent here were definitely intense and took a while to adjust to being in such an immersive Spanish environment. However, it was so beneficial for learning and rapidly improving my Spanish abilities. I value these language schools as a privileged long-term investment of a skill, which will no doubt come in useful when I hopefully return to Latin America in the not-too-distant future. Alongside classes, every Friday we would run community health fairs called Campañas. The programme had partnership with local organisations which included the police service, prison service and community pharmacies. This involved running pop-up clinics in underserved and isolated areas, where we could provide free clinical consultations and appropriate prescriptions for required treatment. This was an invaluable opportunity to practice at length consultations in Spanish in a very authentic environment.
After this, I then flew to Iquitos in the Amazonas region, which is the largest city in the world that is inaccessible by road! I enjoyed my time exploring here, although it is culturally very different from the other parts of Peru, I was in prior to this. I explored the local market and an animal jungle sanctuary. I then spent 2 weeks on a medical outreach boat called the Forth Hope with a charity called the Vine Trust. This is a Scottish charity with its origins rooted in the church of Scotland from 40 years ago. I really enjoyed my time practicing remote environment medicine, relying on clinical judgement due to lack of facilities and equipment that comes in a more austere environment. We would usually get up early, explore the new village which we had sailed to each day, and talk to people in the village, encouraging them to come to the boat to be seen. After this, we would spend the day in clinics, seeing our own patients with translators and helping coordinate treatment plans for them. There could be a range of treatments from prophylactic antiparasitic medication, up to needing some stronger anti-fungal or antibiotics due to severe infections. After clinics wrapped up, we would then go back on land to explore round the local environment, trying some fresh fruit or spotting some wild animals! Particular highlights included sloths and monkeys up in the trees, alongside seeing pink river dolphins.
It was truly amazing to be part of this unique experience and be part of a charity with long term itinerant health services, often offering the only medical care that these people in remote communities will be able to access. Everyday was an opportunity to
adapt to a new culture, meeting really friendly people, all whilst learning and working around the language barrier
It was amazing to see how many people both on the boat and amongst the villages were Christians and truly relied upon God as their main source of hope and sustenance in a difficult world where they often have hard routines and lives, relying upon long days working in agriculture with limited time off, whilst navigating the challenging climate.
Overall, this trip has definitely been a main highlight of medical school and has inspired me to want to seek similar opportunities in my future career. I also thoroughly enjoyed making lots of friendships and long-term connections, for which I am grateful to God and His providence. I hope to continue to explore what might be a potential calling to longer term mission and pursue possible options available. Please do pray for those villagers in isolated communities where life is a struggle and who don’t yet know the love and goodness of God’s kingdom, that the good news of Jesus Christ would reach them one day. I would once again like to thank MMN for their generosity and kindness. The support and prayers offered over those 2 months, were very much appreciated.
