The UBC ACCESS team, outside of the Woodland Teaching Centre, with one of the nursing aide classes.
A personal blog by McKyla McIntyre (2nd year medical student)
July 13, 2012: “I literally can’t believe this is my last night in Nakaseke. In some ways it’s really flown by, yet in other ways it feels like we’ve been here much longer. I’ve completely fallen in love with the village, as well as with Uganda and all of it’s people – I’ve said it a million times but they really are the nicest people I’ve ever met. Though they may not have hundreds of material things, they have a happiness and a love for life that cannot be bought for any amount of money. I’ll always remember the friends I’ve made here and all of the wonderful physicians I was able to work with. Their optimism, innovation and efficiency impressed me time and time again, and I’ll always try to incorporate their skills in my future clinical practice. We’ve done, seen and experienced more than I thought could be possible in 5 weeks. We’ve been through epic highs and tragic lows – I don’t feel like I’m quite the same as I was the day I arrived, but I’ve learned so much, and I’m hopeful that the changes have made me a little better. I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to take part in this project and I will cherish the memories for the rest of my life.”
Reading this account from the journal I kept while in Uganda is surreal – it’s hard to imagine that a few short months ago, I was working and living there. For five weeks I had the opportunity to live at Life Care in Nakaseke Village, a facility run by the African Community Centre for Social Sustainability (ACCESS). ACCESS is a community based organization in the Nakaseke district of Uganda that operates a medical clinic and a nursing aide school. They are dedicated to supporting the local community through medical care, education, community health workers’ training and economic empowerment. ACCESS provides care and support to people living with HIV/AIDS, orphans and vulnerable children through several initiatives. I discovered this amazing opportunity through UBC’s Global Health Initiative.
Before our departure, we spent a great deal of time learning about Uganda’s culture, while preparing our lesson plans and communicating with project leaders abroad. We discussed extensively with the previous year’s team, and completed valuable pre-departure training through GHI. Before I left, one of the project leaders advised me, “You will begin to understand the project when you return from Uganda”. I didn’t really understand at the time, but she was right – all of the training in the world wouldn’t have fully prepared me for what we would experience when we arrived. We were welcomed not as strangers but as friends and soon-to-be family; it was an overwhelming display of kindness.
Our team on the last day of our Global Health Project, with students from Life Care Nursing Aide School, as well as with ACCESS project leaders Ronald, James and Dr. Robert.
We lived at Life Care in the small village of Nakaseke, where the nursing aide school and medical clinics are located. We quickly became immersed in rural life, where fetching water from the well and reading by kerosene lamp became routine practice. We spent two weeks teaching topics such as Sexual Health, Life Skills, HIV Prevention, and First Aid in the nursing aide school and secondary schools. We also spent some time shadowing in both regional and national hospitals, where we encountered various challenges with practicing medicine in a resource-limited setting. During this time, each of us became aware of the need for more education on the topic of childhood nutrition. Local care providers informed us that malnutrition often tends to be due to a lack of education on topics of feeding schedules and nutrition, rather than due to a lack of resources. We immediately began incorporating nutrition into the future curriculum, so that we could help with this need next year. I recognized that, without having actually travelled to the village and experienced all of the food available, we would have been hopeless in trying to advise the residents. It was during this time that I realized the value of hands-on experience in a global setting.
With so many global health projects available to students, how can you decide which one is right for you? One of the crucial factors for me was sustainability. It is important to keep in mind that the time volunteers are abroad is extremely limited. Therefore, a project that can continue in the volunteer’s absence would undoubtedly make the most impact. In the secondary schools we adopted a ‘train the trainers’ approach, where we worked with the nursing aide students so that by the end of the teaching, they were independently running the workshops that we had designed. Research showed that their teaching was equally effective to ours, which was a significant finding for us in support of our ultimate goal of developing a sustainable initiative.
My time in Uganda was among the best of my life. I encourage anyone interested in seeking global health to pursue the opportunity. Find out as much as you can to make sure that the trip is right for you, and take all of the necessary safety precautions. Finally, be ready to open your eyes, mind and heart, and to have the experience of a lifetime.
~McKyla McIntyre