Physicians for Human Rights, by blogger of the month, Sam Nesemann

This past weekend my roommate, Kyle, and I went to the West Bank to shadow doctors working with PHR.  PHR stands for Physicians for Human’s Rights.  They travel to the West Bank and Gaza providing healthcare for people who are underserved.  The experience was incredible.  We all met outside Tel Aviv and drove in in two vans.  We first arrived at a sort of municipality building and were introduced to the town.  We then drove to a school where each doctor set up in a room to see patients.  Drugs were brought in the van and a pharmacist set up on the second floor.  I followed an internist from Belfast up to the third floor with a translator who I had just found out knew of my sister as they have a mutual friend from University in Scotland—small world.  The cases we saw varied from normal tonsillitis to an 8 year-old boy with blood pressure of 160/80, and a young girl with no eye-brows, eye-lashes, and losing more hair with normal thyroid hormones.  Too many people to see set up shop outside the rooms and a few tried to push their way in each time the doors were opened.  At one point the Mayor came in to personally thank the Doctor and have a picture taken with them.  I don’t know if he did it with every doctor, but I would assume so.  The entire time, a guard from the town was helping us with translating more cultural nuances, and advocating a bit for himself by asking for medication for a peptic ulcer in a seemingly half-joking way.  We worked for several hours without a second for a break.  I helped where I could (which wasn’t too much since I’m still a first-year) and shadowed the rest of the time.  Once we were finished we headed back to the municipal building and had a dinner with all the doctors and several people from the town.

The experience was an incredible opportunity to get a taste of a global health experience.  I HIGHLY recommend to any future students to jump on the opportunity to volunteer with PHR.  - blogger of the month, Sam Nesemann