• Sign in

  • Join for free
  • Who We Are
    • Our Mission
    • How It All Began
    • Our Boats
    • Our Crew
    • Our Base
    • Clinical Calendar
  • Join Us
    • Volunteer
    • Fellowships
    • Apply Now
  • Programs
    • Immersion Program
    • Mobile Clinics
    • Dental
    • Casa de Asilo
    • Advanced Follow Up & Emergency Response
    • Community Development
    • Education & Training
    • Data & Research
    • Remote Clinical Outposts
    • Veterinary Program
  • Updates
    • Newsletter Sign-Up
    • Press & Media
    • Videos
  • Give Now
    • Ripples of Hope
    • COVID-19 Support!
    • Charitable Gift Catalog
    • Fundraise
    • Volunteer Contributions
  • Sponsors
  • Contact
Floating Doctors
  • Follow Us

Login

Register
  • Donate with PayPal
Login / Register
View Cart
0
Floating Doctors
  • Menu
  • Who We Are
    • Our Mission
    • How It All Began
    • Our Boats
    • Our Crew
    • Our Base
    • Clinical Calendar
  • Join Us
    • Volunteer
    • Fellowships
    • Apply Now
  • Programs
    • Immersion Program
    • Mobile Clinics
    • Dental
    • Casa de Asilo
    • Advanced Follow Up & Emergency Response
    • Community Development
    • Education & Training
    • Data & Research
    • Remote Clinical Outposts
    • Veterinary Program
  • Updates
    • Newsletter Sign-Up
    • Press & Media
    • Videos
  • Give Now
    • Ripples of Hope
    • COVID-19 Support!
    • Charitable Gift Catalog
    • Fundraise
    • Volunteer Contributions
  • Sponsors
  • Contact

Lessons Learned in Caring

Homepage » Ships Blog » Lessons Learned in Caring
17December

Lessons Learned in Caring

Next
Previous
December 17, 2014
By joshfishman
0 Comment

FDBlog3It is difficult to explain the transformation that happens while you volunteer with the Floating Doctors. For the group of us nine medical students there were six months of planning, coordinating, and fundraising topped off with much anticipation and excitement.

Our goal was to teach local providers working with the Floating Doctors how to screen for high-risk pregnancies and heart defects in children using portable ultrasound machines. We planned to study the feasibility of the training as well as help screen as many patients as we could. Our hope was that by empowering local providers with the knowledge and tools to perform these potentially life saving exams, we could leave laFDBlog2sting impact beyond our eight week summer.

Soon enough we were in Panama, working along side Dr. Ben and Floating Doctors doing just that- educating and empowering the locals, and giving them the tools to sustain the improved health of their communities. As UC Irvine medical students, ultrasound is a part of our curriculum. Working with Floating Doctors validated just how useful portable ultrasound technology is in resource-limited settings. We were able to inform a pregnant woman that she had placenta previa, an extremely dangerous condition that can be fatal during childbirth. Floating Doctors provided transportation to the woman from her residence on a remote island to a nearby hospital, where she safely had a cesarean section. She and her baby are alive, and that would most likely not be the case without the ultrasound screening, and without the assistance provided by Floating Doctors. Throughout our cumulative eight weeks with Floating Doctors, we were able to forewarn many women with high-risk pregnancies, and children with congenital heart defects that they should seek attention from a hospital to receive life-saving treatment.

We went into ourFDBlog4 Floating Doctors experience with a goal- to make a sustainable impact while improving our clinical skills, but we ended up coming out with so much more than that. The greatest lessons learned weren’t which ultrasound probe worked best to assess fetal head diameter or which view of the heart was easiest to get on a small child. The most profound lesson was discovering what being a healer meant for each of us. Everyone goes to medical school for slightly different reasons, but the underlying theme for all of us is that we want to improve the lives of others. When working and learning in the United States it can be easy to lose sight of the human aspect of medicine. Your time is limited with each patient, you send your patients to get X-rays, CT scans, blood tests. To some, a patient can become a list of lab values and radiology reports who can be treated with a medication. Every hospital needs to have the latest equipment to make that list of lab values and radiology reports that much more accurate. But that is not what medicine is about, and working with Floating Doctors helped us remember what it means to be a healer. We made house calls and lived along side the Ngobe people. We got to know each patient as a whole person and took as much time as we needed with each patient. We didn’t close the clinic at 5:00pm, we closed the clinic when there were no patients left. Many times we saw patients into the night with our headlamps as our only source of light. That’s what the Floating Doctors experience, and medicine, is all about: providing healthcare to people in need.FDBlog1

With Dr. Ben and his fearless team as a model we learned what a privilege it was to be let into the lives of people in their moments of need and how as providers we are in the unique position do something to make it better. We have learned that being a healer means doing the best you can with what you can. It means putting in the extra work to figure out what is going on when things are unclear. It means asking for help when you can’t solve a problem on your own. It means being reliable and keeping your word. It means carrying this sense of awe and responsibility with us for the rest of our careers. Our Floating Doctors experience has undoubtedly influenced each and every one of us, and we will all be better physicians because of our experience.

Written by: Amanda Purdy and Jessica Vaughan

Photos by: Amanda Purdy and Jessica Vaughan

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Categories: Ships Blog
  • joshfishman

Related Posts

August: Immunization Awareness Month

August 31, 2020
0 Comment

As we close out August and what feels like the millionth month of quarantine from

Read more

Sailing Through the COVID Storm

August 14, 2020
0 Comment

How is it the middle of August? With the way the past few months

Read more

Keep Washing Your Hands…And Also ‘Don’t Touch Your Face’!

March 29, 2020
16 Comments

Let’s Give Everyone a Way to Break the Face-Touching Norm We've compiled a list of places

Read more

A Look Back on a Decade

December 31, 2019
0 Comment

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent

Read more

Jonathan

December 30, 2019
0 Comment

Earlier this month, you were teased with a picture of Jonathan, a very sweet boy

Read more

Our Final Clinic of 2019…

December 19, 2019
2 Comments

Our Final Clinic of 2019... by Gaurav Sikka, Floating Doctors Lead Medical Provider Floating Doctors’ final clinic

Read more

A TRIP THAT OPENED A NEW PASSION

June 20, 2019
0 Comment

by Jill Patel Jill Patel joined us as initially as a global health student in the

Read more

Our Dental Program Grows…

February 11, 2019
0 Comment

By Dr. Kevin Lan, Dental Director "You can never cross the ocean unless you lose sight

Read more

A Letter from our Founder, Looking Back on 2018

December 31, 2018
0 Comment

As the last days of the year draw to an end, I've been handed an

Read more

A Journey Towards Fairer Winds: A Reflection of Panama

December 17, 2018
0 Comment

by volunteer Trisha In “Be sympathetic to the weakest, because the odds of silver and gold

Read more
facebook twitter instagram

@FloatingDoctors

© 2020 Floating Doctors. All Rights Reserved.
%d bloggers like this: