Why now?

June 9th, 2019 by Bryce Loder

When to set out and start seriously working in the low resource areas of the world is a very personal decision. In the classroom portion of INMED training, I looked at my daughter who had already spent two years of her young life as a volunteer working with mothers and children in a mountain village in Peru and other classmates who, early in their careers, were preparing for long term work in low resources areas of the world. But life, work, health, family and need for education in the field of internatonal health don’t allow most people to stop what they are doing and go volunteer in another country or city for months at a time. I was one of those. Forty years of practicing medicine and just dipping my toes into the water of this challenging field of international medicine–but I needed a push into deeper water.

 

We all come to this decision as we feel ready. Short term mission trips, sometimes little more than medical tourism, provide an introduction; reading and traveling can also prepare one to break loose and jump in with both feet.

 

The INMED International Medicine and Public Health certificate programs were like the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back” for me. Surrounded by other enthusiastic students and the classroom instruction of Dr. Nicholas Comninellis, I was able to get over the hump and see ways to continue my education in this field and gradually work toward again seeing this as my full time work, as I had imagined while reading Dr. Tom Dooley and Dr. Albert Schweitzer all those years ago. I was already spending a fair amount of time in the remote and cold coastal and island villages of Alaska’s Seward Peninsula and the Bering Strait. They are more remote and challenging than some of the places I had worked in Central America. I had already jumped into the water and hardly knew it.

 

So, Loma de Luz Hospital in a rural jungle area along the north coast of Honduras is where I arrived last night. It’s warm–91°F/33°C with “feels like” temperature of 108°F/42°C this a.m. I have a shower with the “widowmaker” electric shower head set to a perfect lukewarm. No need to touch the switch again–wet or dry! I also have lots of bugs and lizards that make noise. I’m not opposed to sharing my space, but we need to talk about a noise curfew. One bug or lizard sounds exactly like someone lightly tapping keys on a metal door. I only got up and opened the door the first two (okay, maybe three) times it knocked! The learning process has already started.