Volunteer: Puspa Kharal

The whole experience was amazing! The thrill of travelling to a new country and being offered amazing opportunities was unforgettable. I believe that the care I received from local Filipinos and family of Dr. Mitchell Schuster was of a very high standard and possibly a far greater level of care than what I would have experienced in Nepal. Before coming to Philippines I could not swim with confidence ,during my stay in Philippines I learned not only how to swim but also how to dive to deep water: credit of it goes to Dr. Schuster, Sean Evans, Dan April, Dev and other members of our health camp. Philippines is very beautiful country on earth, and people are very kind too. I recommend all to visit Philippines at least once in their lifetime.

Then the clinic began:

At the primary health care level, the clinic consisted of general health checkup including management of high blood pressure, diabetes, skin diseases, acid peptic disorders, eye &ENT diseases, minor surgeries and many more. These services including supply of medicines were provided for free. Obviously, we could not cure every patient of all their ailments; for example, patient with sophisticated eye problems could not be fully treated as we did not have ophthalmologist in camp. This was one of the sad limitations of the camp, but never the less, we proceeded to do our best by focusing on primary health care and targeting the most common health problems such as infections (including Tuberculosis), high blood pressure, diabetes and poor hygiene.

At times the language barrier proved to be somewhat of an issue as many of the people from Bicol region struggled to speak or understand much English. However, we had wonderful translators who helped us to build good doctor patient relationship. Our team consisted of doctors including me, medical students from USA, members of Bicol Clinic Foundation and local volunteers.

Dr. Schuster is amazing doctor and human being. I would not recommend anyone to go anywhere else, Bicol Clinic Foundation is going to become even more popular and successful as it has Dr. Schuster in leading role.

Puspa Kharal