November 30th, 2019 by Daniel Russo

I am a third year family medicine resident originally from Lititz, PA. I am currently working at Wellspan York Hospital. My wife, Elaina Truax Russo, and I are excited to serve at Kijabe AIC Hospital in Kijabe, Kenya as an away elective for 3 weeks in December 2019. We are travelling through INMED and have just recently completed our INMED coursework.

Prior to this trip we have rotated at the Baptist Medical Center in Nalerigu, Ghana for a month in 4th year of medical school. Last year we helped staff a clinic in Sendafa, Ethiopia through a group from Living Word Community Church in York, PA. We are very grateful to our program’s Global Health Track and scholarship for partially funding our travel. We have had great experiences in the past and are hopeful that this month will be as well.

We are currently sitting at the Dulles Airport and soon will be boarding for Nairobi via Dubai. It will be a long day of travel but rest assured we have downloaded enough movies and books to stay busy.

This will be Elaina’s first time in Kenya, but I have actually been to Kenya before. As a high school senior I participated in a mission trip through Lititz UMC to Musese. I remember meeting a physician (maybe a resident?) from America at the guest house in Nairobi who was on his way to work at a hospital in the country. I remember thinking how cool it would be to be able to come back to Kenya some day and work as a physician. 11 years later (almost to the day) and we are fulfilling that dream.

We are thankful that we were able to spend the last 2 days seeing family and friends and eating Thanksgiving dinner… twice. Having fueled ourselves with leftover pie this morning we are ready to embark.