I must first begin by saying that it was with a bit of irony that I went into planning for this last trip to Laredo. During my period of involvement with Frontera, the opportunity to go on a Laredo trip always passed me by. So, I had some trepidation as I enticed students and physicians to go on this trip that was still a mystery to me. Any questions that came up regarding the trip were deferred to Joe Peters, the other Laredo trip planner.
On the week of the impending trip, Dr. Richard Usatine met with our team to go over the sports physical exam, as that was the main exam Mercy Ministries asked us to perform for their young patients. Dr. Usatine went over the signs of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (cause of Sudden Death in healthy athletes), Marfan’s Syndrome, scoliosis, and so on. For us second-years, it felt like a refreshing review of previous modules; for the first-years, I can only imagine their wonder and bewilderment. At least, that’s how I recall my feelings when I went on a Frontera trip as an MSI, pondering over what “HTN” and “CAD” on the HPI form could possibly mean. But that was part of the learning process for the medical students on this trip: MSI’s gained knowledge and skills beyond their fellow classmates, and MSII’s finally felt for once like they knew something and could be teachers.
We embarked on our trip on a drizzly, gray Friday afternoon. When we reached Laredo, we spent the night in dorm rooms at the Texas A&M International University. (Interestingly, TAMIU has a healthy population of deer and javelina roaming their campus.) The festivities of the night included excellent Mexican dining at a nearby restaurant and an exciting game of Rook taught by Shannon Toews (MSII).
The next morning, we arrived at Mercy Ministries at 8:00 AM with Starbucks coffee in hand, where the sisters warmly greeted us and whisked us to a back room for orientation. Sister Rosemary, a spunky, tall, gray-haired woman, gave us words of encouragement and reminded us of our purpose for being there. My impression of the ladies at Mercy Ministries was that of a group who cared so much for their community and were working tirelessly to improve their lives. They ensured us that they were careful to draw in a needy segment of the population to the clinic that day, because there were certainly people who would have come for free health care that did not necessarily need it.
The students paired off and went into six clinic rooms, and we went straight to work. Over the course of the day, we saw in total 50-something young patients who needed sports physicals and normal physicals. They were patient to wait in a full waiting room for who knows how long as we tried to serve them best by offering thorough exams. Dr. Berggren and Dr. Usatine were on hand to clear patients and examine any unusual findings. They began to count how many overweight and obese (BMI > 30) patients they saw with acanthosis nigricans (a dark pigmentation on the back of the neck that could be indicative of diabetes mellitus). The numbers were high, especially worrisome since the patients were young and many were athletes.
We ended the clinic at 1:30 PM, tired but satisfied over a day’s hard work. Before returning home, we had lunch at another Mexican restaurant for the last time. Needless to say, many were stricken with food coma and exhaustion on the drive home. Special thanks to the tireless drivers who delivered us safely back to the parking lot of UTHSCSA.
Overall, the trip was a huge success – the students were professional and hard-working, the doctors were constantly teaching, the patients were excellent, and the Sisters at Mercy Ministries were shining examples of what we can only hope we may one day become. For while we may congratulate ourselves for taking the day off from studying to help others, people like Sister Rosemary commit to this work day in and day out with perseverance I can hardly fathom.
-Tina Oak, MSII
