About the department
Doctor extols the benefits of taking family medicine global
By Steve Crossman, M.D.
Family Medicine, Spring 2008
One of the most rewarding aspects of my work over the past two and a half years has been taking medical students and resident physicians on international electives to work in rural Honduras. “Going global” has been a long-standing interest of mind, starting during my medical school years here on the MCV Campus at Virginia Commonwealth University. I completed a fourth-year student elective doing public health in Jamaica and was truly amazed by the people I met and in seeing how medicine is practiced in other parts of the world. As a family medicine resident, I was lucky enough to work on a medical trip in the mountains of Guatemala. These two experiences solidified my interest in global health, but it was not until years later when I joined the faculty at the VCU-Fairfax Family Medicine Residency and met Andrew Bazemore, M.D., (a family physician who also works at Fairfax) and Pat Mason, M.D., (a pediatric endocrinologist from the VCU School of Medicine Inova Campus specializing in international adoptions) that I was able to get involved in international medicine again.
Bazemore introduced me to Shoulder to Shoulder Inc., an international not-for-profit nongovernmental organization that has been working in Honduras for nearly two decades. Mason introduced me to the VCU School of Medicine student group HOMBRE, which has been leading trips for first-year medical students to Honduras for about 10 years. Since the winter of 2006, I have traveled to Honduras five times and I have two more trips coming up this year (one in June with HOMBRE and one in October when we will be taking, for the first time, fourth-year medical students).
While I could fill up many pages of this newsletter with the personal benefits and rewards I have received on these trips, I would like to speak directly to my experiences with the first-year medical students. Through HOMBRE (the Honduras Outreach Medical Brigada Relief Effort), I am lucky enough to be able to work with some of the best and brightest students in our medical school. These students are inspiring in their energy, enthusiasm and commitment to improving the quality of life for some of the poorest people in the Southern Hemisphere. While some students may have had prior experience working in impoverished areas, for many it is their first chance to experience what it means to live on less than $2 a day: no running water, no bathrooms, no electricity, no cars, no books and houses with dirt floors and thatched roofs. The medical student-preceptor relationship is often a very powerful and important one for the professional development of young students, especially for the first-year student doctors who seem to view themselves more as “student” and less as “doctor.” In their roles with HOMBRE, though, the students are prepped for and supported in pushing themselves further and further in relating to and caring for not only their patients but the entire community. Watching as students gain more insight into what it means to serve others as the “doctor” is interesting and extremely rewarding.
The combination of serving those who are truly in need and of the very close mentoring relationships that form with the students is extremely energizing for me as a clinician-educator. I surely receive more than I give on these trips and know that the gifts I bring back with me — positive energy, renewed commitment to service and excitement about teaching — help me be a better doctor to my patients here in Virginia.
Steve Crossman, M.D., is the director of undergraduate medical education for the VCU Department of Family Medicine.