Well, we're home now. Sort of anticlimactic, eh? Sorry about that. We were a bit too busy to blog during those last couple days and have been trying to recover our sleep schedule ever since. Well, at least I have/still am.
Anyway, after our day at Ha Long Bay, we went back to Hanoi for a couple days. Pretty cool stuff. We checked out a couple pagodas, the Temple of Literature (sounded like a great idea to this former English major), the Old Quarter, Hoa Lo prison (the "Hanoi Hilton"), Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum and house, lots more fun and exciting food, etc. Good times.
At the end of the day on the 17th, the sad moment had arrived, when our intrepid group had to split up once again. Tiffany and Kelsi went back to Ho Chi Minh City to meet up with their families, while the boys and I started the long journey homeward. The flight home wasn't nearly as bad as it should have been, since by some magical happenstance the plane was underbooked, so we each had plenty of room to spread out. And gotta say, as much as we all loved Asia, it was very nice to get back home. If only because of the States' complete lack of noodles for breakfast, haha. Not gonna lie though, the transition back to American food has been an interesting one for most of our GI systems. Good times.
I really can't emphasize enough to all of you out there what a wonderful trip ours was. First of all, getting to encounter so many new countries and cultures was so much fun, and very educational. And I know that for me, one of the best parts about travel and new experiences is the light it sheds on your own lifestyle. Finding out how people do things differently lets you actually look at what you do and wonder why you do it that way. Teaches you a lot about yourself and your own culture, both the good and the bad.
The sheer fun of traveling was not our original motivation in taking this trip, however. To quote this blog's first post, "Our goal for sending students to disadvantaged communities is twofold. Firstly, the need in these areas is very real, and we are able to make a significant difference in the lives of the people there, brief though our time there is. Secondly, we feel it is very important for medical students to develop an understanding and appreciation for the different cultures and problems that exist in the world around us." Were these goals accomplished on this trip? I would answer that with a resounding yes.
As to the first goal, making a difference to the people we were serving, it's of course hard to come out with a unilateral yes to that. There was such need in those communities, and we were only 7 people with limited time, limited supplies, and (for the students) limited knowledge. However, our goal wasn't to fix every problem. Our goal was to make a difference in the lives of the individuals we were serving. And I think we accomplished that. In the Philippines, a man had relief from pain as a result of clearing his blocked catheter. A boy had a giant abscess on his forehead drained cleanly. A man had a pyogenic granuloma removed. A woman with pneumonia received medication. Dozens of children had their scabies treated. We made a difference to each of these people. In Cambodia, a whole hospital benefited from the presence of Dr. Gossman, and an orphanage benefited from receiving physical exams for the first time in quite a while. In Vietnam, one family has a house now that didn't before, and scores of people in the middle of nowhere got to go to a mobile clinic that we helped with. True, we were just taking blood pressure, but we helped the clinic run smoothly, and enabled the doctors to do their jobs.
As to the second goal, that of "developing an understanding and appreciation for the different cultures and problems that exist in the world around us," I don't think any of us can deny that this was well accomplished. Observing and participating in health care in setting so different from the ones we are used to was a very eye-opening experience, and taught us a lot about many different things. Also, before we left, Gossman had told us that practicing international medicine like this is kind of like crack, and once you're bitten by the bug, there's no going back. Is this true? Probably definitely yes. This was such a great experience, I know I personally want to do this again, and am so excited for the day we can actually do more, when we're all real doctors and don't have to defer to Dr. Gossman every 5 seconds about everything.
So, conclusion? CURA 2009 SE Asia: best. thing. ever. Fantastic group, fantastic people to work with in Asia, fantastic food, decent weather, gorgeous scenery, ridiculously awesome everything. High five, everyone.
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