High School Study Abroad in Ecuador

I truly had such a great experience. All the staff were incredibly kind and willing to help us 24/7. The food was amazing, and I still miss it. Overall, my favorite part of the three weeks was the community we built together. We all became so close in such a short time, and everyone was truly inspiring. I am so grateful to International Medical Aid for giving me this experience and introducing me to people who I know will continue to be a part of my life.

IMA was one of the best experiences of my life and will definitely always stay that way. The in-country support was consistently top-notch in terms of comfort, organization, and punctuality. I greatly appreciated the 24-hour security and the guarded gate at the residence, which gave both my parents and me peace of mind and allowed us to rest easier at night. The guards’ system of having us report our whereabouts for safety reasons made us feel protected while still giving us freedom with our outings and how we spent our time outside the residence. The accommodations within the residence are something I am incredibly grateful for. Having our beds made while we were away and our laundry done for us meant I could focus fully on the hospital and the program rather than day-to-day chores. The food was outstanding. On my first day, I mentioned to the chef that I do not eat beef, and every single day afterward there was always an alternative option prepared for me. I especially want to thank Grace for the friendship we built and how she was always looking out for me—whether it was after a shift or just seeing her around the residence. I remember one evening when the main course was beef burgers and she quietly brought me a plate of chicken that the kitchen had prepared just for me. Every buffet was thorough, generous, and thoughtfully prepared, with more options than I could have hoped for. The kitchen staff is spectacular and truly among the people I was most grateful for during my internship. The outreach and community impact that IMA emphasizes are done exceptionally well. From the weekly clinics to the specific lessons we taught in schools, these moments have stayed with me the most and prompted the deepest introspection and reflection. Being welcomed into under-resourced communities and seeing how we, even as students, could contribute to screenings, education, and basic services was incredibly humbling. Seeing how we were treated as interns in underserved areas was eye-opening and only fueled my passion for medicine as I witnessed how deeply doctors are valued and needed to better society. Even as a high school student, I was allowed to help perform eye tests and participate in the nutritional aspect of medical reviews—experiences I feel privileged to have had so early in my life and prospective career. The multiple avenues that IMA provides for interns—from rotating through different hospital departments to engaging in real-world scenarios where we apply our knowledge to help others—have shaped me in ways I am still processing. I can confidently say this experience has made me a more empathetic, gentle, observant, and benevolent individual. I listen more now and think more carefully before I speak, because I have seen how unforgiving yet how generous life can be depending on where and how people are born. I want to remain mindful of that and truly serve my community to make it a better place. I could not thank IMA more for this opportunity and carry immense gratitude in my heart. It was my first night shift at Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital. I had barely been in Mombasa for a week and, despite advice to rest, I was too energized to stay in bed. Around 8:00 p.m., I arrived in the ICU not knowing what to expect. I had never been in such an unfiltered clinical environment before. My grandmother had spent her final days in an ICU in America, but even within my first week at Coast General, I knew the two settings were impossible to compare. The ICU was housed in a separate, guarded unit. We covered our shoes and hair before entering. The hospital overall felt like a black-and-white system, with each department having clear responsibilities and routines: surgery with its log sheets, maternity with its different stages of labor and dedicated C-section rooms, the Newborn Unit warm and carefully set up to mirror the womb for fragile infants. The ICU felt like the space in between—the grey zone between life and death—where nothing was sharply defined and every outcome felt precarious. At around 2:30 a.m., Dr. Hassan Ali walked into the doctors’ office and casually asked how we were doing. Still half-asleep, we answered that we were fine. Then he said, plainly, “We just lost a patient a few minutes ago.” There was no padding, no gentle buildup—just the truth. The shock to my mind did not beat the sinking feeling in my heart. Earlier that night, we had gone bed to bed, learning about each patient’s case. A pregnant mother with seizures and pneumonia, eyes rolling back then resetting, body jerking uncontrollably. A patient with a hole in her heart and pneumonia on top of her condition. A 16-year-old mother whose baby was upstairs in the Newborn Unit, while she lay jaundiced and frail from pneumonia. She was the only one strong enough to smile, and I smiled back through my mask with my eyes. Back in the doctors’ room, we reviewed patient files for the first time: names, ages, marital status, medical histories, admission dates—entire lives compressed into a few pages of ink. Around 2:31 a.m., we tried to process what had just happened. When we asked what the patient who passed had been suffering from, Dr. Ali explained it was due to diabetic complications. Her blood pressure had suddenly spiked and then crashed. Resuscitation failed. When we asked why her abnormal vitals hadn’t appeared on the central monitor, we were told her monitor wasn’t connected to the main screen because there weren’t enough connections. They usually kept the more stable patients on that monitor. This time, it turned out differently. It was the first time I fully internalized how chance and limited resources could decide whether someone lives or dies. The following week, I was placed in the Newborn Unit. Here, babies in their first hours, days, and weeks of life were monitored, supported, and stabilized. Some struggled, some were abandoned, and many were under close observation along with their mothers. One of my first tasks was to help clean the cots: washing beds with soap, chlorine, and water, changing bedding, and carefully transferring each baby. Once the work was done, I was introduced to Baby Faith—the baby I would be responsible for feeding. I prepared formula specifically labeled for Faith, mixing sixty milliliters of hot water with two scoops of formula, and wondered how I was supposed to feed him with such a large cup. That’s when Nurse Cecelia handed me a brand-new syringe. I lifted Faith from his bed and carried him to a chair. He began to stir as I gently placed the tip of the syringe between his lips. He drew it in and drank with surprising coordination. He would suck firmly once, then create an air bubble inside the syringe that eased the flow of milk—an adjustment he seemed to discover instinctively. When he fell asleep in my lap, I read through his file. He had been born premature, recently strong enough to leave the incubator and no longer need oxygen support. Then I saw it at the top of the page: “Mother deceased June 10th.” His mother had died of cancer during her pregnancy. She was 25 years old, married, and Faith was her first child. Holding him, I realized he had likely never felt his mother’s touch. From birth, he had gone straight to intensive care. As he rested against my arm, my pulse was one of the only rhythms he had to mirror. The privilege I was given to care for him is something I still struggle to express in words. My time in the Maternity Department brought together everything I had seen about life, risk, and resilience. I helped a mother adjust her clothing, called a doctor when her IV had run dry, and watched as a team supported her through each contraction. I saw the final push—the point of absolute exhaustion where she somehow found the strength to finish bringing her baby into the world. That first cry felt like the end of a war: chaos collapsing into relief. I cried too, overwhelmed by the enormity of what I had just witnessed. Not long after, I scrubbed into a C-section. The gynecologists worked with calm precision, talking us through each step. When the baby was delivered, she did not cry. Under the radiant warmer, the nurses tried stimulation, suctioning, and then CPR—fifteen compressions to two breaths, in perfect rhythm. For a moment, her chest rose faintly, then stopped. After ten minutes, the team had to make the call. The baby had passed. The mother was in critical condition but expected to recover. The abrupt shift—from hope to loss—was devastating. These moments forced me to think deeply about the three stages of life: birth, life, and death. Birth is the first test, where so much can go wrong yet survival is celebrated as a victory of chance and strength. Life is the unpredictable stretch shaped by circumstances often beyond our control. Death is the conclusion of a completely unique story, even when the diagnosis is shared by millions. Doctors stand closest to all three stages, faced daily with sights and decisions most people will never encounter. Quotes I had once read took on new meaning. Neil deGrasse Tyson said, “You can only die if you were ever alive.” Richard Dawkins wrote that most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born, emphasizing how improbable our existence really is. In Mombasa, those ideas felt tangible. I saw people lining up at pharmacies to buy medications they could barely afford, families forced to choose between basic needs and treatment, and communities where clean water is not guaranteed—where 41% of people must risk unsafe options that can land them in the hospital. I realized how rarely I had questioned those guarantees at home: rapid imaging, readily available medications, preventive care taken for granted. And yet, in Mombasa, I never once doubted the humanity of the healthcare workers. I never saw a doctor who didn’t know a patient’s name, even when responsible for more than twenty patients. I never felt they were there for prestige or wealth. Their love for their patients, their collaboration, and their sincere desire to serve were evident in every interaction. The emotional warmth and integrity I witnessed at Coast General is something I will never forget. Leaving Mombasa, the small frustrations of daily life at home felt insignificant. My perspective on privilege, suffering, resilience, and responsibility had shifted. Healthcare, I realized, is a field that operates at the very edge of all three chapters of life, demanding scientific rigor and emotional strength in equal measure. My time with International Medical Aid and at Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital confirmed my calling to pursue medicine—not just as a career, but as a way to honor the privilege of being alive and to serve others with humility and gratitude. My heart has been permanently imprinted with the benevolence, strength, and radiance of Kenya. The love, mentorship, and trust I received from International Medical Aid, the staff at Coast General, and the broader Mombasa community are gifts I will carry with me forever. Asante sana, Kenya. We will meet again.