Nov 20, 2011

Jon, Mary and Kenny talking to Dr. Burgos about one of the cases at a nursing home in the outskirts of Shenyang, China.

During our travels, we relied heavily on Mary to do the translating work for us, and she did a particularly admirable job with the medical Chinese thrown at us in the hospitals we visited. So we were retrospectively grateful for the chance to learn from an English speaking doctor during our first week in Shenyang: it ended up being our best clinical experience while in China.

We're speaking, of course, of Dr. Peter Burgos of the Liaoning International General Health Trainers that we mentioned in an earlier post. We weren't the only group to hear about his program: the week of our arrival, we were introduced to a group of Quebecois and a group of American students who were also there to learn about China and his work. He shared with us his perspective of the Chinese medical system as an American-trained doctor who has been living there for the past ten or so years. He stressed the importance of primary care and its underdevelopment in China-- something that we saw first hand in the crowded hospitals in Beijing. When someone gets sick in China, the first place they go is the hospital and this leads to bustling waiting rooms.

Mary had a chance to take patient histories in Chinese and report the case back to Dr. Burgos. It was pretty neat to watch her get to work, and it was nice to put into practice something we had learned in our first year in medical school.

On a separate day, we learned the basics of a neonatal exam and we saw a case of Tetralogy of Fallot in an orphanage. While it's medically exciting to conduct a physical exam on a relatively rare disease (0.04% of births), it was in stark contrast with the environment in which we saw it: the orphanage was full of children abandoned because they were disabled. Add to that the neglect of abandonment and I was quite convinced of the importance of nurturing in the proper development of a child. We don't have pictures of the orphanage-- we didn't think it appropriate to take photos of people who were already so vulnerable.

Nov 18, 2011

We've been back from China for a while and we'd like to apologize for not updating sooner. Logistically, we'll be working on updating the website so we can update it from any computer.

But wow, what a trip!

In the next short while, we'll be posting some of our reflections from our time in China. For the time being, I hope you'll be satisfied with this picture we took on the Great Wall sporting our Schulich white coats.

Dan, Kenny, Mary, Audrey and Jon of MSIC 2011 on Mu Tian Yu section of the Great Wall of China.

May 1, 2011

In 2009, MSIC went with the Sunshine Doctor's Project to rural Western China. We're excited to continue our partnership with them this year. From their website:

The Beijing Sunshine Doctors Consulting Service Center (Sunshine Doctors) was established in April 2007 and is the first comprehensive, professional volunteer doctors' group in China. Sunshine Doctors focuses on creating an online platform for volunteer doctors, recruiting volunteer doctors from inside and outside of China, and providing directly accessible medical services and technical support to areas and peoples throughout China which suffer from a lack of medical resources, thereby helping them to improve their public health conditions and promoting their capacity to respond to public health issues.

This year, we're still finding out if we'll be participating in a conference with them in Nanjing, but if the dates don't line up, we'll be joining them in their Beijing office.

Audrey and I also began our Mandarin lessons! This week, we learned basic greetings, as well as the names of several departments in Mandarin-- shen2 jing1 ke1 (Neurology), jing1 shen2 ke1 (Psychiatry), er2 ke1 (Paediatrics), wai4 ke1 (Surgery), to name a few.

April 25, 2011

Tachy 2011 was a great success, and now we've got the energy to really put our summer plans into full gear.

We're starting by putting up posts talking a little bit more about the organizations we plan on visiting. Our first host is the Liaoning International General Health Trainers in Shenyang, China. LIGHT has several projects geared towards providing medical services for those who would not receive treatment otherwise and we will be joining them on their rotations through countryside clinics, local orphanages, nursing homes, and their own charitable clinic.

The director of LIGHT, Peter Burgos, treating the elderly in a nursing home.

We're excited about LIGHT because our time with them will give us a glimpse into primary care in China: LIGHT created one of the first primary care residencies in China and continues to provide services that are affordable to low income patients. Though we expect disease management to be similar across national borders, we're interested to see whether there is a difference in patients' conceptions around illness and disease, particularly for the silent indicators of poor health (blood pressure, diabetes) for which Canadian primary care doctors struggle to educate their patients.

April 13, 2011

Four of our team members are heavily involved in Tachycardia 2011, and we're very excited for our first show this Thursday!

Since our last update, we've confirmed our visit with the Liaoning International General Health Trainers in Shenyang, and we're talking with a contact at the Vista Health Clinic in Beijing. We think that visits to these two hosts give us a chance to see a broad spectrum of health care in China, spanning the provision of rural care for those who can't afford it to fully Westernized medicine in China's capital.

If you're interested, please donate! We've set up our donations account with the University of Western Ontario, and you can find donation instructions on our Donations page.

March 29, 2011

We've uploaded our bios and a brief summary of who we are! Check it out on the About Us page

March 15, 2011

We're excited to begin the launch of our new website! Stay tuned for more updates soon...

February 26, 2011

The five members of MSIC 2011 attended Global Health Predeparture Training day in London, Ontario. Key take home points? We need to learn more Mandarin, we should do our homework on the country, and we should be excited for a chance to travel and check out health care practices in a country around the world. I'm most excited about the challenges of a new cultural experience. I've been to China before with my parents, but going on my own (and as a doctor-to-be!) means I'm going to take on new responsibilities. And that means I'll be picking up more travel sense, quickly.

Plus, we took our first group picture:

Our first group picture in the lobby of the Medical Sciences Building.