Health Care Delivery in Latin America and International Heath Care Awareness
With the continuing globalization of industry, economy, and especially health issues, we recognize the importance of understanding health problems and policies in neighboring countries. We aim to increase our awareness of health care in Latin America by working with physicians and medical students who serve patients in the Dominican Republic. By participating in health care in the Caribbean, we will see conditions and treatment that differs from our cloistered experiences at the University of Florida. As part of our orientation to the health care in the Dominican Republic, we will attend a seminar given by the Universidad Central del Este medical faculty. This seminar will serve to familiarize us with tropical and third world medicine. Additionally, interaction with the local medical physicians and students will enhance our understanding of both the similarities and differences of medical education in the Dominican Republic in comparison with the United States curriculum.
Establishment of a Telemedicine Network
Limited funds prevent us from bringing more than two attending physicians to the Dominican Republic. Therefore, we plan to establish a telemedicine network between our makeshift clinics in the Dominican Republic and online/on-call physicians at Shands Hospital in Florida. Recent advances in telecommunication technology will allow us to transfer high quality digital images of our patients to these online physicians in Gainesville. This network will increase our efficiency and it will allow us to care for larger numbers of patients. We will also aim to use this network as a model that will lead to the establishment of a long-term online collaboration between physicians in the Dominican Republic and our physicians at the University of Florida College of Medicine.
Build Spanish Language Skills
The increasing numbers of Hispanic immigrants into the United States ensures that we will be treating Spanish speaking patients as part of our daily practices. As preparation for our trip, we aim to improve our medical Spanish vocabulary by performing weekly mock interviews with Spanish speaking surrogate patients. Moreover, working with patients in the Dominican Republic will reinforce and enhance our medical Spanish communication skills.
Raise Funds for Medical Supplies and Other Expenses
Our plan is to gain enough financial support to purchase medical supplies and equipment to serve the Dominican population with limited access to health care. With the recent hurricane damage to the Dominican Republic, Dominican physicians agree that our services will still be needed in late April. In order to prevent oversupply and redundancy the medical community in the Dominican Republic is advising us about the most needed medical supplies. Secondary to this goal, we also aim to raise enough funds to pay for the travel and living expenses of the students and faculty on this trip.
Ongoing Educational Effort
After returning from the Dominican Republic, our work will continue. We will produce a slide presentation and additional media documentation to share our experience with other medical students, faculty, and our community. It is our goal that the knowledge and experience gained during this trip will be the basis for an annual program for UF medical students. Furthermore, this program will become part of the ongoing effort to sensitize medical students to the health needs of varying populations.
FACTS ABOUT DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
The Dominican Republic is a country located on the eastern two-thirds of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, bordering Haiti. Hispaniola is the second-largest of the Greater Antilles islands, and lies west of Puerto Rico and east of Cuba and Jamaica. A legacy of unsettled, mostly non-representative rule lasted for much of the 20th century; the move towards representative democracy has improved vastly since the death of military dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo in 1961. [1]
According to the 2005 Annual Report of the United Nations Subcommittee on Human Development in the Dominican Republic, the country is ranked # 71 in the world for resource availability, # 94 for human development, and # 14 in the world for resource mismanagement. These statistics emphasize the national government corruption, the foreign economic interference in the country, and the rift between the rich and poor. [1]
While the DR remains one of the poorest countries in the Caribbean, there is a huge gap between the rich and the poor, with the richest being the white descendants of Spanish settlers, who own most of the land, and the poorest comprising people of African descent. The mixed race majority controls much of the commerce. Mutual distrust has soured relations between the DR and its troubled neighbour, Haiti. Up to one million Haitians live in the DR, many of them illegally. The government has carried out mass deportations. [2]
Sources:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominican_republic
[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/country_profiles/1216926.stm