A summer to remember… in India

During the school year, this organization of 25 students from different program (ranging from law students to medical students to physics students) ran the medical students’ café at UDM. This was a wonderful opportunity to work with many students from various faculties and exchange ideas. Then, in the following summer, all the students traveled to various countries to try to make a difference in different social internship programs. I decided to take a leap of faith and plunged myself into the intricacies of Indian life.

Before this summer, I had never lived on my own, and certainly not half way around the world… isolated from everyone I knew, eating foods that are very different, and a way of life that is quite different from North America. There are some things that we would hardly ever see in Montreal yet are so common in India. Goats and cows roaming free and eating posters off from the walls on the roads are daily sightings. Even monkeys who steal your cola or mango juice from you are common!

My internship took place in the Christian Medical College Hospital in Vellore, India. You may think “What difference can there be between two hospitals?” After all, doctors treat diseases. Let me give you a few examples to illustrate the differences. Many of you may be familiar with the “baby aspirin” that has 80 or 81mg. In Vellore, it is called Ecosprin and comes in 75mg. While preparing medications for the patients, we count them with our hands. If, by some mishap, we dropped a pill on the floor, we would pick it up, put it in the bag and hand it to the patient, all under the patient’s watchful eyes. A pill is of course too precious and expensive to waste. This would never have happened in Canada. In Canada, there would be no direct hand contact and any pills dropped would be discarded.

I also had the opportunity to join a couple of mobile clinics going to outlying villages to dispense medication for chronic diseases such as diabetes, and heart disease. Such mobile clinics were very efficient in their treatment. A group of two nurses and a pair of doctors would see over 100 patients in one day. They had to not only juggle with the patients’ illnesses but also deal with the financial limitations of those same patients. These experiences made me realize how fortunate we are to have a health care system in which the government pays for most basic medical needs.

Would I do this again? Absolutely!! And I highly recommend all students to get involved in such worthwhile endeavours. While in India, I was an ambassador for Canada. At the same time, I came away more appreciative of what we have and the humility that we should not take things for granted.

Alison Wong, pharmacy student and member of CASI