I distinctly remember the morning of my first mobile clinic with the Floating Doctors. Only knowing the small group of UCLA nursing and nurse practitioner students in my group, we were anxious and excited to get started on our first full day of volunteering. We quickly began shaking hands and making introductions unaware of the incredible […]
BULLDOGS IN BOCAS: Adventures of Reach Out Panama 2013
MARCH 10TH: TRAVEL AND FIRST DAY IN BOCAS DEL TORO The adventure began with a small group of eager travelers. We waited during these beginnings: waited for the train to take us into New York, waited to get out of the frigid cold airport, and waited to arrive at Panama. And after hours of travel, we […]
Dream Hopping: A Recount of How One Man’s Vision Changed My Life Forever –Blog by volunteer Graham Lichtman
It had been roughly 48 months since I first began working with Floating Doctors and 30 months since my last day on the Southern Wind. Strangely enough, after spending a semester and half helping to transform a dilapidated boat into a beaming vessel of hope, the feeling of wanting persisted. You see, amid all the […]
“But I will preserve the purity of my life and my arts…” -Hippocratic Oath Blog by Dr. Claire Antoszewski
There comes a time in any journey, when initial prejudices have been shed and before nostalgia settles, when one can see things as they are. I spent the month of October working with Floating Doctors, and for me that moment came while traveling from Bocas town to Kusapin on the panga, the group’s small run-about […]
Peace Corps Eye-View of A Floating Doctors Mission
“Lifeboat Chronicles” July 29, 2012 Blog by Las Tablas Peace Corps Volunteer Doug Martin Sometimes, early in the morning, the mist from overnight rain storms envelopes the town and hides her from outsiders. Sometimes the murky brown waters of the Sixaola River creep higher and higher until they stumble up and over the only road […]
HIV in Bahia Azul
“Turning a ‘No’ Into a ‘Yes’–How To Adapt Your Mission For Success When Conditions Change” Blog by Volunteer Doctor Jordan Amor-Robertson, MD (Pediatrics; Australia) On my last weekend with the Floating Doctors a multiday clinic was scheduled in Bahia Azul (Bluefields), a Ngobe village which is on the mainland, however is only accessible by sea. […]
Lightning Doesn’t Strike Twice, But Thrice…
Blog by Volunteer Doctor Jesus Niebla, MD (United Kingdom) I am a man who before this trip was scared (well I’d say apprehensive) of heights, mountain paths with sheer drops and free running river crossings. I was not too fond of thunderstorms either. In the early hours of the 16th of July I set off […]
“Me llamo Ravi. Soy su Doctor”
Today’s blog was written by one of our recent volunteers, Dr. Ravi Chokshi, just beginning a residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology. These are his thoughts and impressions of our 4-day mobile clinic up in the mountains to a remote village called La Sabana, or ‘The Grasslands.” Over 200 patients were seen, including pediatric and trauma […]
“Say that he loved old ships…”
Ah, the Asilo…one of the places we heard about here in Panama when we were still in Honduras. We found a unit seldom visited by a doctor (in a year), but with a wonderful staff of no more than a cook, cleaner and nurse on each of the two 8 hour day shifts and 2 […]
Mobile Clinics over 4,600 Square kilometers
The last time I wrote a blog, an unconscionable number of months ago, we had recently arrived here to Bocas del Toro and I ended the blog excited by what might be possible over the coming months…now those coming months have passed, and it is time to catch everyone up and take stock of what […]