Study Abroad Programs in Caribbean

My experience in Kenya was amazing. I loved fully embracing the culture and meeting so many new people. The people who worked at IMA and in the hospital were wonderful. From the moment Michelle picked me up from the airport, she made IMA feel like home. She was so welcoming, and we quickly became very good friends. I also grew very close with Hilda, who always went above and beyond to make me feel at home and let me know I had a friend in her. The kitchen and housekeeping staff made my time at IMA even more enjoyable. The housekeeping team once even washed my scrubs when I forgot to put them out—something I truly appreciated. I loved the food at the residence, especially the cake! It was really fun when a few of my friends and I got to help make a cake and cinnamon rolls. The residence quickly became my home, and I’m so grateful for that. I feel that I grew as a person both in the hospital and in everyday life, as I was constantly challenged to step out of my comfort zone. The special relationships I formed and every moment I spent in Kenya will stick with me forever. I truly cannot wait to return someday. Everyone comes into this world with nothing. Most people spend their whole lives working to have something—then leave this world with nothing again. So, your soul must gain more than your hands. That sentiment has come to define the way I view my daily life after my internship in Mombasa, Kenya. I've always struggled to find my passion and purpose. Yes, I have things I enjoy doing, but nothing defines who I am as an individual. It's something I’ve prayed about for as long as I can remember but never quite felt to come to fruition. That changed during my time in Mombasa. I found the importance of being a part of a community greater than myself and the impacts small actions can have on others for an eternity. I can truly say it set me on the path to becoming a better version of myself—a better future physician and a better friend. I witnessed the beginning of life, formed lifelong friendships, and saw the end of life. The full cycle. And through it all, I was challenged to value every part of my life more deeply. Birth. As Dr. Shazim would say in every debrief, “Let’s start at the beginning of life. Maternity.” Before arriving at Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital, I was pretty determined to become a pediatrician. I have always been somewhat apprehensive about going into a specialty where death was on the line, and admittedly I had never stepped into a surgery prior to theater 2 at Coast General. Thus, I have spent most of my shadowing hours in a pediatric clinic. However, surprisingly, the maternity ward quickly became my favorite rotation. I could directly see my feelings about Kenya correspond to labor. Mothers spend months preparing to deliver their babies. They feel everything—excitement, fear, anxiety. There’s always an adrenaline rush. No one knows exactly what will happen, but the mothers, nurses, and physicians prepare for the moment a baby finally comes into this world expectantly. That’s exactly how I felt arriving in Kenya—a rush of emotions and so much uncertainty. A dream I’d held since high school was finally coming true, but I had no idea what to expect. The culture shock, the unknown, the lack of healthcare resources—it was all very real. But the maternity ward shaped me into the kind of physician I want to become. Witnessing a woman’s intense pain during labor to then peacefully hold her newborn is a moment I will carry with me. Despite the challenges of pursuing a career in medicine, like labor, being a part of some of the most shaping and important aspects of someone’s lives will make it worth it. In Mombasa I thought I’d be most influenced by the physicians, but it was the strength of the women that inspired me. They made me want to be the best physician I can be—for them. From C-sections to natural births, witnessing the beginning of life reminded me that nothing is guaranteed. I walked away with a new calling: to pursue a career in obstetrics and gynecology. I looked back on my journal entries for my rotation in the maternity ward, and I couldn't help but smile. The women I directly got to help, either by stretching with them during labor or holding their hands, I will always remember, and that empathy I learned while in Kenya will shape me into the best physician I can become. Friendship. Throughout my life, many people have influenced me. I’m a firm believer in “friends for different seasons”—some friendships fade, and some stand the test of time. Friendship is an impactful aspect of a person’s life and shapes who they are and become. In Mombasa, I saw the true value of friendship: in patients, mentors, fellow interns, and strangers. Growing up, I attended the same private school from kindergarten to senior year. I graduated with seven people, and I was not challenged to step outside my comfort zone and interact with different types of individuals. However, during my time in Kenya, I was able to reflect on different friendships I had encountered and truly what I had learned from other individuals in my daily life. There were friends who rallied together after tough shifts at the hospital. Friends like Hilda and Michelle, who made Mombasa feel like home. Patients who opened up to me—confided in me—as if we had known each other for years. Strangers asking me what I was doing in Mombasa and fully welcoming me into their city and culture. There were friends who became like family. I watched physicians rally around one another to care for a community in need. That kind of camaraderie—rooted in compassion—deepened my belief in the importance of human connection in medicine. According to Harvard Medical School, medicine has somewhat lost its human connection due to technology: “At its best, being a doctor is an extraordinary and intimate privilege. We build relationships with our patients and see them through times of both joy and suffering; our relationships with each other help us through the same. It's hard to do that in a way that's truly satisfying when we spend most of the day at the computer screen” (Harvard Health, 2016). At Coast General, resources and technology are very limited, and these physicians and nurses must communicate with the patients and peers, which depends on human connection and in turn often creates a more positive experience for the patient. I specifically saw this at the medical clinics, as physicians had limited resources but collaborated and did their best to help every individual, which is something I deeply admire. Death. I wasn’t prepared to see someone take their last breath. I expected panic, sadness, maybe fear. Whenever I have had a loved one die in the past, I usually view it in a negative way. But the death I witnessed was peaceful—like the patient was ready. In a strange way, that’s how I felt leaving Mombasa. I expected to be in tears, not ready to leave the place I had called home for the past month. But instead, I felt peace. Peace that I had experienced something life-changing. Peace that I had grown spiritually, emotionally, and personally. Peace that I had found friendships that would last a lifetime. In a way, this feeling of “death” will stick with me as I start my career to become a physician. The feeling of peace is advice I can pass onto others who are losing a loved one. Death is inevitable, but while in Kenya I learned it can also be peaceful. Death does not have to have a negative connotation, but the narrative of death can be changed for the better. “If you think about it, life is nothing but thoughts, and our thoughts come from the mind. Our thoughts are an internal path leading us somewhere. To the next thought, the next idea, the next life. Everything is created with thought—emotions, designs, and theories. Where thoughts lead us is the most important thing; it’s our inner path leading to freedom or suffering” (At Peace With Death | Bennington College, n.d.). The people in Kenya were steadfast in their faith, and this helped me realize that in some way we are all just walking each other home. I feel like this is an important lesson to take with me in my journey to become a physician, as I have to come to peace with death and help loved ones keep moving forward in their lives. Souls. Souls tie people together. A soul is what makes someone who they are—and it’s shaped by every experience, every relationship. Kenya changed my soul for the better. I poured into others. I learned patience. I experienced a completely different culture and let it shape me. In the pediatric outpatient ward, I met a young girl named Nora who became obsessed with a balloon glove I made for her. That small gesture—something so simple—brought her joy, and in turn, filled me with joy. It made me more aware of how even the smallest acts can have a big impact on someone else’s soul. Yes, Kenya was culturally different from my small town in Georgia. But what struck me most was the people—their outpouring of love and gratitude. They valued what they had. They didn’t take life for granted. In the Western world, we often measure worth by material things—by how much we have, not by how full our lives are. But in Kenya, I saw the meaning of the phrase “Make sure your soul gains more than your hands.” Even amidst poverty and corruption, people remained faithful, grounded, and fulfilled. That lesson is one I’ll carry for life. Before Kenya, I struggled to articulate my "why" for medicine. My answer was something generic—“I enjoy helping others.” But now, I understand it's deeper than that. Medicine isn’t just about helping others—it’s about having a soul-level impact. What I saw, experienced, and endured in Kenya wasn’t easy. The children begging for food outside our Ubers, the lack of basic life-saving devices in the hospital, and people dying due to lack of ICU beds. None of this was glorious, but the community of people that rallied around each other was. Despite differences in ethnic and religious backgrounds, I saw new mothers look out for each other and their newborns, which is a testament to the people in Kenya and the type of person I want to be for others in my life and when I become a physician. Following my arrival home from Kenya, I was asked to speak at church about my experience. I gave my presentation about my time in Kenya and the ways Mombasa and Coast General impacted my life. I will still struggle to put into words the impact the experience had on me. However, unbeknownst to me, the sermon directly following my speech was about souls. About how people have started to value what they materially have in this life over friendships and the impact they have on others. But whenever one dies, none of those materialistic things goes with them, but their soul does. The experiences and impacts that others have on their soul go with them to their next life. Thus, I realized that the impact Kenya had on my life will stay with my soul forever, and consequently the impact I had on others will stay with their souls. Those who connect medicine with the soul are the difference between a good physician and a great physician. The main physician I saw this connection in was Dr. Faruk. Spending the day with him in the diabetes and thyroid clinic, he taught me the importance of finding my voice and passion in medicine that subsequently has an impact on others' lives. He is starting his own nonprofit to help children with type 1 diabetes get access to insulin. This is something he is passionate about and will have an amazing impact when accomplished. Dr. Faruk is an inspiration for me, as he is the physician I want to become. A physician who is not in it for the money or for the fame but is in it for the direct impact that they have on others' souls and daily lives. As Sir William Osler said, “The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease” (Centor, 2007) International Medical Aid has shaped me into the physician I want to become. My time in Mombasa taught me the importance of understanding each patient’s story and beliefs, and the responsibility I have now to leave a lasting impact on everyone I meet. These challenges and lessons will stick with me forever and my growth as an individual is all accredited to my experience in Mombasa, Kenya.

I had an excellent experience with IMA. The staff all went above and beyond to ensure my comfort and safety. The experience was so incredibly meaningful, and IMA’s accommodations helped me feel less overwhelmed and more prepared to take in the experience. Hilda in particular went above and beyond, especially on the Malindi adventure. She was very approachable, fun, and organized. I remember sitting in my high school biology class, flipping through a textbook when I stumbled upon a section on diseases prevalent in the developing world. It described, in vivid and unsettling detail, the symptoms of illnesses like Ebola and malaria—two diseases I had never heard of at the time. The page depicted Ebola’s internal hemorrhaging and malaria’s destruction of red blood cells as they burst and release parasites into the bloodstream. The section ended with a sobering note: Ebola and malaria might be curable, but little progress was being made due to a severe lack of research funding. The textbook also estimated the total cost to eradicate malaria. According to the Gates Foundation, the estimated cost to eliminate malaria by 2040 is between $90 and $120 billion—a sum less than the net worth of many of the world’s wealthiest individuals (Renwick). That statistic stuck in my mind and has remained with me ever since: global health inequality is a solvable problem—so why aren’t we doing more to solve it? Over the following years, my interest in global health deepened, particularly as the COVID-19 pandemic exposed glaring inequities in vaccine access. I found myself inspired by frontline healthcare workers—many of whom were my own neighbors—and by the efforts to democratize vaccine availability worldwide. I trained to become an EMT, responding to medical emergencies on my college campus, and became involved in vaccine delivery research focused on developing pulsatile-release vaccines aimed at improving vaccination rates in low-resource settings. I joined a global health club on campus and worked to raise awareness of global health issues among my peers. Still, something felt missing. I didn’t fully understand who I was helping. Who were these vaccines for? Who truly bore the brunt of these inequities? Why was it urgent to act now? I wanted to understand who was behind the numbers—the lives, the faces, the families. Landing in Mombasa marked my first time outside the developed world. I remember the drive from the airport vividly. It felt chaotic, alive, and strained all at once—tuk-tuks, motorcycles, cars, and pedestrians weaving through the streets with no apparent regard for traffic rules. At every stop, people approached our windows offering fruit, nuts, or handcrafted goods, desperate to make a sale. The struggle for daily survival was tangible. I watched silently from the backseat, feeling a complex mix of awe, guilt, and anticipation for what lay ahead in the hospital. During my first week, I was placed in the internal medicine ward, where we were introduced to Dr. Suhail, who guided us through patient rounds. One of the first patients we met was Margaret, a woman who had clearly suffered a stroke. I had been trained to recognize strokes as an EMT, but this was the first time I saw the reality firsthand: facial drooping, right-sided weakness, and expressive aphasia. Dr. Suhail explained that Margaret had been in the ward for about a week and was showing slow signs of improvement. Margaret could understand us but couldn’t speak. She lay motionless on a rusty bed, covered by a colorful blanket, with flies buzzing across her face. Her daughter, strong and vigilant, stayed at her bedside, advocating fiercely for her care—swatting flies, changing Margaret’s clothes, and reading aloud to her. When I asked Dr. Suhail how long it had taken for Margaret to reach the hospital after her stroke, he explained that many patients arrive well past the “golden hour,” when intervention might still reverse the damage. In neighboring Somalia, the average time to arrival for stroke patients is 16 hours (Sheikh Hassan). Many delay care due to lack of healthcare literacy or a belief that divine intervention will heal them (Kimani). As we continued our rounds, I began to notice the silence that filled the ward. Patients sat quietly, not using phones or engaging in conversation. It wasn’t peaceful—it was haunting. It felt like a collective understanding that not much could be done for them. Limited resources meant that Dr. Suhail had to prioritize only the most urgent conditions. Retroviral diseases, for instance, were often left untreated. Despite taking thorough histories and analyzing labs and imaging, there was often little he could offer by way of treatment. One moment that struck me deeply was meeting a 20-year-old woman with stage 4 cervical cancer. She was my age. No treatment was scheduled; she was only receiving palliative care and was expected to spend her final days on a deteriorating hospital bed under the beating sun. That image stayed with me—how unjust it felt that someone my age, with a potentially preventable and treatable disease, was forced to endure such a fate. Had the cancer been caught earlier, this woman might have a better prognosis. However, like many of the other patients we saw that day, she presented with an advanced-stage illness, and the opportunity for curative treatment had already passed. The internal medicine ward revealed a grim reality, yet within it, I also witnessed resilience and community. The patients, though suffering, created a comforting environment within the ward. They wore vibrant fabrics and their beds were covered in intricately patterned blankets. Family members looked after not only their loved ones but checked in on others in the ward as well. In the midst of helplessness, the community thrived. My second week was spent in the surgical department. I observed an array of procedures—from the placement of a ventriculoperitoneal (VP) shunt to a coronary artery bypass graft. On my first day, I watched a double valve replacement. Dr. Iqbal, a visiting surgeon, generously spent two hours walking us through the procedure. He explained that such surgeries are often the result of untreated rheumatic fever—something nearly eradicated in the U.S. due to access to antibiotics like penicillin (Cleveland Clinic). It was jarring to see complex, high-risk surgeries being performed for diseases that could have been prevented with basic, affordable interventions. This theme of treating symptoms instead of root causes recurred throughout the week. VP shunts, for example, are used to treat hydrocephalus, which can arise from neonatal infections like Streptococcus pneumoniae (Sakurai et al.). In many African countries, these infections go untreated due to limited access to antibiotics (World Health Organization). Similarly, I observed a spina bifida surgery—another condition preventable through folic acid supplementation, a standard and inexpensive part of prenatal care in high-income countries (Mayo Foundation). The reality is stark: in Africa, families face costly, high-risk surgeries for conditions that are preventable with the right public health measures. In a country where the health expenditure per capita is just $88.39 compared to over $10,000 in the U.S., bearing the cost of expensive, preventable procedures is unconscionable (International Medical Aid). It was a painful reminder that without robust public health infrastructure, expensive hospital interventions become the last resort for preventable tragedies. Even the operating rooms reflected the resource gap. During one open-heart surgery, a fly buzzed around the room. The presence of a fly during open-heart surgery wasn’t just a nuisance—it was a symbol of how drastically under-resourced the system had become. At one point, Dr. Iqbal requested an alpha blocker only to be met with silence—it wasn’t available. Instead, he instructed the anesthesiologist to improvise using a mix of saline and nitroglycerin. I later learned that Dr. Iqbal was a visiting cardiothoracic surgeon and had only been at Coast General Hospital for three days. Many doctors at the hospital split their time between public and private hospitals to make ends meet. Coast General, the largest public hospital in the region, has only one full-time cardiothoracic surgeon. As my time in Mombasa came to an end, I was left with a deepened sense of purpose, humility, and urgency. I witnessed physicians delivering care under unimaginable constraints, doing everything they could with the limited resources they had. I was struck by their willingness to teach and share knowledge despite the demands of their work. I returned home with renewed gratitude for the healthcare systems I had always taken for granted. Yet, I also returned with frustration. Why are essential resources being cut from USAID-supported programs in this region? I heard stories of emergency rooms without working defibrillators, CT machines being down, patients undergoing procedures without anesthesia, and common medications being out of stock. These are all solvable problems. Programs like PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) are being significantly disrupted. PEPFAR has saved over 26 million lives since its inception and cuts to the program could put millions of additional lives at risk (UNAIDS). Additionally, PEPFAR alone employs 41,500 healthcare workers in Kenya, many of whom are now facing layoffs (Kenya News Agency). When international aid programs are cut abruptly, the burden falls on local communities who are ill-equipped to fill the gap, exacerbating health inequities and endangering the lives of many additional people. The future of healthcare in Kenya is unstable and it has me worried. The world has the tools, resources, and knowledge to fix this, but the will to help is eroding. This experience affirmed my commitment to global health—not just in theory, but in action. I now understand that to be a good healthcare professional is to care deeply about people and systems alike. It means advocating for equity, addressing root causes, and seeing the patient within their full human, social, and economic context. My hope is to one day contribute to the transformation of healthcare systems like Kenya’s—through better infrastructure, expanded access to care, and increased healthcare literacy. I am more determined than ever to be part of the solution.