Medical Health Training

2005 Panama
2002 Panama
2001 Honduras

2005 Medical Training

In addition to the teacher training program that was provided during the same weeks, the Mona/FUNDESCU team brought many education supplies and two doctors to offer medical services. Dr. Steve Gottlieb and Dr. Manaji Suzuki provided medical services at the SOLOY Hospital in the mornings and attended a line of grateful patients at the Institute in the afternoons and evenings. Between them, they saw over 250 patients for a variety of ills, including respiratory infections, malnutrition, gastroenteritis, skin problems and parasites.

Medical Services and Clinic
for the Ngobe Bugle People

Panama, July 14 – August 5, 2002

Dr. Steven Gottlieb served as medical officer for our service group of 20 people (16 youth and 4 chaperones) as well as our guides and program collaborators, as we traveled in Panama for a three-week period. He also attended people in every community we visited, suturing lacerations, splinting a broken foot, removing ticks and splinters, and treating infections, acute febrile illnesses, stomach problems, heat stroke, nausea and vomiting, presumed strep throat, miscellaneous skin and eye problems, sinusitis, and other ills.

In addition Dr. Gottlieb:

Conducted a pre-trip medical orientation for the group in Yakima, WA (1-1/2 hrs for 15 people)
Held two, day-long clinics at the Soloy Health Center in Chiriqui, Panama. The clinics were open to the public and Dr. Gottlieb was able to treat approximately 25 children and adolescents each day.
Held a day-long clinic, seeing about 30 people, in the small mountain town of Boca de Remedios.
Purchased and made arrangements for the delivery of medicines for the Boca de Remedios health auxiliary worker, and for Dr. Jimenez at the Soloy Clinic, in follow-up of patients with specific conditions where treatment was otherwise unavailable. He also wrote out detailed instructions on how to treat each of these conditions.
Conducted a half-day clinic in Soloy for twelve teachers from the rural Ngabe-Bugle indigenous schools.
Provided a 2-hour training for these same teachers on preventing and treating common problems, including diarrhea and dehydration in children, respiratory infections, asthma, musculo-skeletal complaints, skin problems and nutritional issues.
Spent almost a week in the town of Boca del Monte, working all day and into the evenings, diagnosing and treating a variety of medical complaints.
Prepared emergency medical kits and trained team members in their use, for each of five groups traveling to the remote mountain schools. The kits included anaphylaxis treatment, as well as antibiotics and medications for asthma, diarrhea and allergies. He also trained each team to use a water filter and purification tablets.
Overall, Dr. Gottlieb was able to serve approx. 150 people during the trip.

Dr. Gottlieb prescribed medicine and explained how to use it. Some of the particular challenges he encountered were:

Treating someone with heatstroke and dehydration in a remote mountain area, ten hours from the nearest hospital.
Treating a 19-year-old woman with congestive heart failure, who had been carried on a stretcher for seven hours down from the mountains by six family members, when they heard a visiting doctor was in town.
Treating and referring several children with kwashiorkor.
Mixing and administering oral re-hydration solution improvised from local ingredients, grinding antibiotic tablets to provide appropriate doses for babies and children, and teaching the local people how to do the same.
Making up and labeling numerous packets of medicine for treating pneumonia, asthma and dehydration, and writing out instructions for their use, all in Spanish.
Suturing a leg wound under a carport in fading daylight, using sterile technique, and with an audience of family members and friends.