Weinberg senior Bubba Peterson diagnoses Honduran woman. Peterson heads the NU chapter of Global Medical Brigades which embarks on a service trip to Honduras each year.
On June 28, when the Honduran military ousted president Manuel Zelaya for allegedly planning to alter the constitution, Weinberg senior Alexander “Bubba” Peterson panicked. As the head of the Northwestern chapter of Global Medical Brigades, he had been planning a service trip to the Central American country in late September. In other words, he was set to lead 44 students straight into a potential civil war. The phone calls and emails started pouring in.
“It was a nightmare,” Peterson says. “Right after the coup it was just a whole sea of people asking me what was going on. People were emailing me every day, saying their parents won’t let them go. We just scrambled, and decided the best thing to do was to push it to December over winter break.”
Winter break afforded less opportunity for some students to spend a week abroad. More than half of the original 44 backed out after the coup. Only 20 students went on the rescheduled trip in December.
As most NU students embarked on three weeks of academic freedom, Peterson arrived in Honduras directly from O’Hare International Airport with 19 other students, two doctors, and 30 suitcases stuffed with pills. They traveled from village to village in rural Honduras setting up clinics and bringing medicine—Tylenol, Advil, and dermatological cream, to list a few—that remains scarce in countries like Honduras.
Global Brigades was founded internationally in 2007 as a collaborative effort between a student at Eastern Virginia Medical School and Sister Maria Rosa Leggol, a children’s activist in Honduras. It has grown into a student-run effort at 110 universities aimed at creating sustainable development in impoverished countries through projects ranging from medical assistance to micro-enterprise.
The Global Medical Brigade at Northwestern was co-founded by Peterson when he was a sophomore. Over the course of one week, the group saw more than 1,200 patients.
“We’re able to get really unique clinical experience that you wouldn’t be able to see in the United States,” said Peterson. “We’re able to shadow doctors, and we’re able to really communicate with the patients.”
A military coup wasn’t the biggest problem in making the trip a reality. Northwestern considers Global Medical Brigades a liability because the students, even though they are supervised by licensed physicians, hand out the medicine personally.
“The university only allows physicians or licensed medical doctors to hand out medication,” said Chris Johnson, the university’s Director of Risk Management and Safety. “That’s our official posture, myself and the general counsel. Anytime you have someone not licensed handing out drugs that creates a liability.”
As a result, Peterson has been unsuccessful in trying to lobby the university for official student group status. Other Global Brigade groups, such as Global Business Brigades and Global Water Brigades, are recognized by the university.
“We’re a completely unofficial Northwestern group,” he said. “We can’t actually call ourselves GMB of Northwestern. We can’t get funding or recognition.”
“I did some inquiry into the kind of work your group was doing,” Wood wrote in an email to Peterson. “The university was not willing to recognize your group. Unless you have drastically changed your charge, the answer will still be the same.”
This was GMB’s second trip to Honduras. The first occurred in September of 2008. Peterson attempted to apply for student group status before the first trip and was denied. When he made another attempt before the group’s most recent trip, Associate Director of the Center of Student Involvement Helen Wood replied to Peterson via email, stating: “I did some inquiry into the kind of work your group was doing. The university was not willing to recognize your group. Unless you have drastically changed your charge, the answer will still be the same.” This means no Northwestern funding for Global Medical Brigades, forcing them to turn to alternative sources.
“It is frustrating that they won’t give us funding,” Peterson says. “University funding would be crucial. it would really help us out in terms of getting more medicine.”
Despite the lack of support from the university, the group still manages to meet its needs.
“We do just fine raising money privately, just because the students are so motivated,” Peterson says. “Especially the doctors that come with us are very generous, either donating money themselves or talking to other doctors and getting them to contribute.”
In total, the group raised $40,178, the tenth largest total among university Global Medical Brigade chapters. Since each member has to raise enough to cover their airfare and in-country costs—usually between $1,200 and $1,600, Peterson says—the aforementioned total depends almost entirely on how many students are participating.
Upon arriving in Honduras, all the fundraising, all the coordinating, all the difficulty with the administration, is validated by the actual trip.
“It was definitely an adventure,” says Weinberg junior and trip participant Kameron Rezzadeh. “The overwhelming majority of us were pre-med, interested in getting some hands-on experience. While kids will do well in organic chemistry or whatever the hell they’re taking, being able to interact with patients effectively is an important skill.”
Traveling around the country, it was these personal interactions that Peterson and Rezzadeh valued most.
There was the old woman who was taken aback by the American students and doctors, flying hundreds of miles to set up clinics. “She looked me in the eyes, and said in Spanish, ‘You guys must be angels from heaven,’” Peterson says. “It was kind of cheesy, but it’s one of those things that makes you feel really good.”
There was the baby that Rezzadeh heard about, brought in by parents who had no idea what was wrong.
“He basically had a parasite growing in his arm. The parents weren’t aware of what it was, and the doctor treated it. But it’s very difficult to do any substantial medical procedure in the middle of nowhere with no equipment.”
Because of these stories and many more like them, Peterson and the rest of Global Brigades is already underway planning the next trip. University funding or not, coup or not, Peterson believes “it will probably be our best trip yet by far.”
[...] further illustrate this point, check out this article about Global Medical Brigades and GlobeMed Executive Director, Jon Shaffer’s response to it. GA_googleAddAttr("AdOpt", [...]