951 NW 13th St.3E Boca Raton, FL 33486 (561) 864-0298 info@bicolclinic.org

Volunteer: Albree Towers

Volunteer

Bicol Clinic Foundation, Inc.
Philippines, 2008

Stepping into the clinic the first day I remember thinking to myself, "How will the patients find us? We have a lot of supplies, but will we be able to help anyone?" Looking back at that first day of unpacking I remember being struck by the setting of the clinic, situated in the middle of the tropics on a cliff overlooking the bay, the view was one which could easily be captured and made into a postcard. Yet just down the road set in amongst the idyllic setting were hundreds of people living on what we in the United States would consider a very meager income. On the way to the clinic we passed by huts composed of a mixture of thatched walls, thatched roofs and cement walls, most with a small well outside to provide city water. Lines of clothing hung out to dry outside, while the children played underneath them in the dirt with sticks or tires they had found for toys.

The first day of clinic as we drove down the overgrown dirt road to the clinic, we passed patients on their way to the clinic where an already long line had begun to form. We quickly unloaded from the van and set about matching up with the doctors to start seeing patients. The next days were a blur- filled with dozens of patients each day, each with a medical condition further complicated by the situation in which they live. While there is a public hospital and free healthcare for some conditions, the medications are not always available and the public hospitals are overcrowded and lacking access to what are considered basic diagnostics like a CT scan and ultrasound. These are available at the private hospital, but the cost is exorbitant for the average citizen. In fact, for a lot of the patients we saw, simply transporting themselves to the public hospital 20 minutes away was out of reach financially. The care for chronic conditions like hypertension and diabetes in some cases was almost impossible to manage, because after speaking with several patients we learned that while they might be able to afford medicine for a month once the medicine we gave them ran out they were unable to continue treatment through no fault of their own.

While it would be easy to discuss the circumstances in which the clinic is operating, there were many successes as well. One of the first patients I saw was a mother who had just given birth to her fourth child four days prior. She showed up at the clinic tachycardic, hypotensive and pale stating that she had been having spotting since giving birth. We quickly determined that she was in hypovolemic shock, and on exam discovered her uterus had not contracted down during the hours following delivery as it should have. We were able to give her iron supplements and instruct her regarding uterine massage to stimulate contraction of the uterus. The next day her condition was much improved. Additionally, we were able to treat dozens of kids for bacterial pneumonia and numerous skin conditions and infected wounds or boils. One child we saw had insulin dependent diabetes and presented with uncontrolled blood sugar despite medication. We were able to change her dosages, provide her family funding to subsidize the cost of the medications and teach the mother how to use a glucometer so that she could regulate her daughter's blood sugar without incurring the daily cost of transportation and testing at the local hospital. My final patient on the first day was a 6 year old girl who weighed 19 pounds and came in with a fever and cough which she had had for the past five months. On physical exam she had barely audible lung sounds on the left side, which was also dull to percussion indicating consolidation. We began treatment with antibiotics while we waited for her to return with a chest x-ray. The chest x-ray showed almost a complete white-out of her left lung, which along with the history indicated tuberculosis. Unfortunately, while there are WHO clinics to oversee free DOTS (Directly Observed Therapy) programs, they are only equipped to care for adults. We then purchased and initiated a pediatric tuberculosis treatment.

These were only a handful of the patients I saw the first day of clinic, and represent a not uncommon fraction of the population of patients we saw and were able to help. This truly was a wonderful learning and personal experience for me. I was able to learn how to adapt the skills I have learnt and the protocols for medicine in the United States to treat patients in a rural tropical setting of the Philippines. Additionally, we were forced on a daily basis when evaluating a patient to consider what tests were truly necessary for diagnosis and treatment, and which would just be superfluous. On a personal level I was able to return to a region of the world which inspired me to enter medicine and devote my life taking care of people, especially those with barriers to care.

Albree Towers
University of Miami
Medical Student

Want To Join Our Team?

BCF has dispatched more than 150 medical students, in addition to dozens of American and foreign physicians and nurses, to provide care to more than 75,000 patients in the Philippines, Nepal and Haiti, many of whom had never before seen a physician. Our team members also volunteer in orphanages and schools to extend health care to other aspects of life. We’d love for you to be Part of the Start!

Join Our Team
The application and all additional requirements MUST BE SUBMITTED BY January 21 , 2020.

Bicol Clinic Foundation, Inc.
Philippines, 2011

Approaching Buena Vista in the Bicol region of the Philippines is a revelation. As you ride over the crest of a hill from any direction, whether on the back of a trike or on the roof of a Jeepny, you witness a dense forest of coconut trees sitting on the edge of an expansive bay across from the massive and active volcano, Bulusan. Once you get over the beauty of the view, you start to experience the beauty of the people of Bicol. Rural and isolated from the more modern international city of Manila, the people in Bicol are friendly, welcoming and overflowing with joy. Of all of the places I've been fortunate enough to travel to, no place is as beautiful as Bicol in its natural gifts and the personality and character of the people who live there.

Bicol is also the most impoverished place I've ever visited. While people are always happy, tragedy is always lurking around the corner. In Bicol a man is happy to live a simple life that revolves around work and enjoying his family and community. But what if that man's son were to be born with a birth defect. Congenital birth defects are common and are readily treated in the developed world. In Bicol, nobody has health insurance or savings. The way people deal with medical tragedy is to sell everything they can to get money to afford a life saving treatment. They face an impossible choice between selling their means of providing for their family, like their boat, or letting their loved one suffer and possibly die. We hear about these stories in the US as part of the debate for universal health care. In the US there are shocking stories of families forced to declare bankruptcy because they can't afford their medical bills. Eventually they lose their house and all their savings. In the rural areas of the Philippines, the hospital won't provide the health care and hope to collect the money later. If a family can't come up with the money up front for anesthesia, surgical supplies, medicine, hospital stay, they never get the treatment they need. For people in Bicol, this isn't the rare exception, it's the rule.

Throughout the first two years of my medical education I was taught about every disease, and shown the natural history, or the kinds of ways a disease will affect someone if no treatment was ever given. I was told time and again that these are historical examples, and that I would never see the kinds of horrific complications that may occur at the end of a disease because in America we treat common diseases so they never progress to that point. At the end of my 1st and 2nd year of medical school, I went to the Philippines and witnessed daily the exact symptoms I was told nobody has seen in America for half a century.

The work that Dr. Schuster and the Bicol Clinic Foundation have been doing in the Philippines is so vital to the community around the clinic. In the two months I spent there I witnessed simple acts that will prevent medical tragedy for families. We treated a laceration on a man's foot so he won't end up with a chronic infection and require an amputation. We treated countless children with strep throat so they won't be at risk of developing rheumatic fever and developing heart disease later in their life. We were able to provide a few hundred American dollars at a crucial moment to get a woman into the OR for a c-section saving both her and her baby's lives. The opportunity to contribute to the Bicol Clinic foundation is unique because it's a small organization that provides money directly to where it's needed most in a community.

Brian Garnet
University of Miami
Medical Student

Brian Garnet

2010 View Brian' s testimonial