Mid Trip Reflections! 

So I had to write a mid trip reflection for my program but I thought I would share some of it! One more month to go!

 Andrea and I jumped onto the Metropolitano, while it briefly stopped a few blocks from our Hostel in the Miraflores district of Lima, Peru. It was nearly 7:30 and we had woken up late for our first day shadowing our on site mentor, Dr. Sixto Sanchez. Crammed inside the bus, similar to the New York Subway system, we made our way from the calmer regions of Lima into El Centro where more and more people piled into the buses. Making small talk, discussing last nights futbol game, and laughing with another woman we were wedged next to, I watched the scenery change as we headed towards Hospital Dos de Mayo, located in one of the poorer regions of Lima. Saying goodbye to the woman and jumping off the bus we walked inside the gates of the old, but bustling, hospital and headed to the obstetrics ward. We had brought our computers, thinking we were going to be working on our projects in SPSS as we had done the night before. However Sixto greeted us with not only a smile but two pairs of sea-green scrubs, masks, and hairnets. Within 30 minutes of this moment, we had changed, been brought into an operating room, observed Sixto perform cesarean section on a pregnant woman, and seen a baby be pulled out under the bright OR lights, about to begin its life. It was most definitely a whirlwind of a morning.

Besides shadowing Sixto in the OR or consultation room, we have been busy working on our MIRT projects. My project focuses on the association between preterm birth and maternal depression, anxiety, and stress. We work with data from nearly 1000 Peruvian women that were enrolled in a case (preterm brith) versus control (birth ≥ 37 gestational weeks) study. We have analyzed the data and are now working on writing our papers. Additionally Andrea and I have been learning a lot from UW statistician, David Yanez and helping administer a biostatistics workshop for the Doctors at Hospital dos de Mayo.

Of course, there has been a huge cultural component of this trip. I mentioned the story above because it has parallels to my Peruvian experience thus far. I have found everything in this city is very busy, lively and colorful. Not only things like traffic and food but people are very warm, proud, and much more united as citizens than what I have seen in the US. Furthermore, its a bit of an adventure waking up every day: trying new food, pushing myself out of my comfort zone, and seeing new things. As the youngest and probably the most unexperienced of my MIRT colleagues and mentors, I think they get a kick out of my captivation for this country. Personally, its always fascinating to have certain expectations of what something is going to be like, be replaced by reality. For example though I had been told that I would see poverty and I had mentally prepared for this, what was unexpected was realizing my own ignorance of the fact that there are millions people who live their lives quite similarly to mine: families with children going to school and parents going to work in and out every day. Just because they live thousands of miles away and speak a different language does not mean that their goals, passions, and joys are different than an American’s.

I think my real understanding of public health has not been from our computer analyses (though those have produced some exciting results) but from seeing and interacting with people every day. As students, doctors, or epidemiologists, our goal is to make lives better and longer so that the small infant that we observed being born will grow and learn in a world that is healthy: living her life without impediments and illness. Who knows what that baby could do with its future! Undoubtedly, public health is exciting and a new field that I had not considered before, but am liking more every day.

I can’t express my gratitude to the MIRT program for this opportunity. Not only have I been graced with a two month trip, a place to stay, and mentors who offer to teach me as much as I can absorb, but I have been given a new sense of what it is to be part of a larger picture in this big and wonderful world. Although we may read headlines and hear stories of sorrow and danger across the world and in our hometowns, people everywhere are still caring, hospitable, and trying to make a difference.