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It Takes a Tokyo Village

Ruth Harimoto June 23, 2017 12 Comments

Ruth Harimoto

I have lived in Japan for more than half of my life. I first came here as a nine-year-old child, the daughter of a missionary. Later, after several years of study and work in the US, I returned as an adult with my Japanese husband. You’d think that after more than thirty years here, I could almost call myself Japanese! But no. In this homogeneous country, I’m still a foreigner.

The role of a foreigner in Japan is, for the most part, a comfortable one. Japanese people are polite. They don’t expect foreigners to know Japanese, so when I do speak it (with my learned-as-a-child accent), I’m applauded and praised. This role can also be lonely, though.

As I go about

Killer Shrimp Ceviche

Kristin Hirni July 15, 2016 6 Comments

Kristin Hirni

It’s October, and I’m a second-year medical student. My best friend Carly and I have just finished a backpacking trip through South America. We fly out tomorrow from Lima, Peru, and we have just one thing left to do: eat shrimp ceviche, the classic South American dish of raw seafood marinated in lime or lemon juice, oil and spices.

We wander along the busy streets until we find the restaurant our hostel’s desk clerk recommended. It’s a small, dingy joint that doesn’t look up to the current health code, but I don’t give that another thought once a giant bowl of amazing shrimp ceviche is placed in front of me.

It’s incredibly delicious, and we quickly demolish it.

A Little Ray of Hope

Tara Jaffery May 15, 2015 2 Comments

Tara Jaffery

About the artist:

Tara Jaffery is an internist working in Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad, Pakistan. She was a FAIMER (Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research) fellow at the time she took this photograph in late 2005, when northern Pakistan experienced the worst earthquake in its history. She sends this photograph “for the people of Nepal…a little ray of hope.”

About the artwork:

“When Nepal suffered its

Famine

Frank Baudino May 2, 2014 No Comments

Frank Baudino

About the artist:

Frank Baudino has worked for more than three decades in family medicine, both as a primary-care clinician and as a teacher. “I am an avid believer in volunteerism, and the volunteer experience which affected me most profoundly was my six-month mission in Sudan with Doctors Without Borders. Photography is another of my passions, and I strive to make images that describe the human condition with compassion.” You can see more of his images at frankbaudino.visualserver.com.

About the artwork:

“Following twenty years of civil war, many of the Sudanese in the south were starving. The

Young Warrior

Tyler Kern April 18, 2014 2 Comments

Tyler Kern

About the artist:

Tyler Kern is a third-year medical student at UCLA School of Medicine. “In my free time, I enjoy nature and wildlife photography.”

About the artwork:

“I took this photograph in Tanzania, East Africa, while volunteering at a medical clinic in a rural Maasai village. I would pass this young Maasai boy on my way to work each day. While his outward appearance was calm, cool and collected, I felt his eyes told a different story. I saw in them a battle between innocence, confidence, insecurity and curiosity–which

Shattered

Kristina X. Duan September 20, 2013 1 Comment

Kristina X. Duan

It was a Monday morning in Chengdu, the capital city of China’s Sichuan province. I was a premedical student who had traveled here from the U.S. to do a six-week summer term abroad at People’s Hospital, one of Chengdu’s largest cancer centers.

As the child of Chinese-born parents, I’d always felt a special fascination for my parents’ strange, captivating homeland. In college, I seized the first opportunity to pursue medical studies in China alongside native students. I’d found myself immersed in a healthcare system that was fragmented, corrupt and riddled with problems stemming from overpopulation and limited resources.

A Reason to Stay

Ashish Massey February 22, 2013 No Comments

Ashish Massey

“Aren’t those decorations looking nice?” asks a soft voice beside me.

Startled, I turn to find a young woman wearing a red-and-white sari. Her head and face are swathed in the folds of the sari, leaving only the large red bindi on her forehead clearly visible.

We’re sitting on a grassy tuft amid a large campus green. All about us stand buildings with signs in both Hindi and English. Atop the central building waves an Indian flag, around which workers are hanging colorful garlands, tassels and lights.

“It looks very nice. What is it for?” I reply in Hindi, feeling that my accent must betray my American upbringing.

I am a fourth-year medical student. Two days ago

An Orphan’s Tale

Peter Ferrarone July 27, 2012 No Comments

Peter Ferrarone

At the outset, I confess that I have no experience in the medical field. I’m not a doctor or a nurse; I’m a recent college graduate, a writer and someone who’s interested in the world. And, all last summer, I was a volunteer in Uganda.

I’d met a Ugandan priest who was visiting the States on a lecture tour. He described his work overseeing an orphanage located in Western Uganda, a day’s bus ride from Rwanda and Kenya. When he invited me to go and help out there, I accepted.

Upon arriving, I discovered that the orphanage was a small, broken-down concrete house perched on a hill

A Passage in India

Justin Sanders June 24, 2011 No Comments

Justin Sanders

“It’s cooler this morning,” I said to Seema, as we left the hospital grounds en route to our home visits.

It was a bright and bustling morning in Trivandrum, the capital of India’s southwesternmost state, Kerala. A third-year resident in family medicine, I had come here to work with the staff of an Indian nonprofit devoted to advancing palliative care services across India. Seema was a young, newly qualified junior doctor who had only recently joined the organization. We were traveling with five others–our driver, two nurses and two nursing trainees–into the mountains east of Trivandrum for the day.

“We don’t really speak about the weather like you do,” Seema gently chided. “In the West you spend lots of time talking about the

Shujinwa Byoki Des

Lucy Moore February 4, 2011 No Comments

Lucy Moore

I don’t speak Japanese, but I can say “Shujinwa byoki des” (my husband is sick).

After spending a month in Bali studying art, sweating profusely and slapping mosquitoes, we were heading home to New Mexico, with a stop in Hiroshima on the way. Our first morning there, my husband, Roberto, woke with a fever of 103 and a full body rash.

The hotel had a thermometer, but no doctor. As Roberto’s fever neared 104, we hailed a cab for Hiroshima City Hospital. (That was when I pieced together shujinwa byoki des from my pocket dictionary.)

In the large, orderly waiting room, we were the only Caucasians. Roberto was a sight–lobster-red and wild-eyed. Staff and patients politely averted their eyes.

A nurse led us to the

Making Headlines

Reeta Mani April 30, 2010 No Comments

Reeta Mani

“Did he die of swine flu?” demanded a scrawny man wearing a blue shirt and green surgical mask. He was one of a throng of news reporters packing the lobby of a private hospital in the heart of Bangalore, my city.

It was early August 2009, and India had just recorded its first casualty from the novel H1N1 influenza virus. This latest variant of influenza–a chimera of swine, avian and human flu genes–was raising grave concerns among the medical community worldwide. To try to contain a pandemic, countries were ordering stockpiles of antiviral drugs and initiating vaccine production on a wartime footing.

In Bangalore, as elsewhere, you

A View From Nepal

Caroline Jones December 12, 2008 No Comments

Caroline Jones

The farmer wanted to know why his three-year-old son couldn’t walk or talk.

I sat opposite him in a dark, cold classroom converted into an examination room for a four-day medical clinic last spring in the village of Lapa, high in the Himalayas.

Wind whistled through the stone walls; rain pounded on the tin roof. The room’s single ceiling bulb kept flickering and dying; I had to use a camping headlamp to see my notes. And communications were hampered, to say the least: We conversed via two translators–from English to Nepali, from Nepali to the local Tamang language, then back again. It sounded a bit like the telephone game, and had similarly uncertain results.

Still, one look was all I needed to make

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

Tag: international health

It Takes a Tokyo Village

Killer Shrimp Ceviche

A Little Ray of Hope

Famine

Young Warrior

Shattered

A Reason to Stay

A Passage in India

Shujinwa Byoki Des

Making Headlines

A View From Nepal

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fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

Tag: international health

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