2011 Grant Recipient 
South Africa
Undergraduate, Public Health Studies, School of Arts & Sciences
Personal Narrative:
I spent the summer of 2011 in Port Shepstone, South Africa. I had approximately two and half weeks notice to plan the entire trip and to receive all of the necessary vaccinations. Since I had had such a short time to prepare for my departure, I was unsure of what exactly I would be doing and what the situation would be like in the area I was to be working for six weeks. As soon as I arrived in Durban, I met with my mentor, the principle investigator, the research coordinator and the graduate student I would be working with for the next few weeks. We had a dinner meeting that night and went right to work early the next morning. I was introduced to the operational managers of the male and female multi-drug resistant tuberculosis wards, the nurses and the patients. The MDR-TB wards in Murchison hospital each hold 20 patients, for a total of 40 patients in the wards. Many of the patients had already been there for a few months and some had just arrived in the hospital. I went around with graduate student who I would be working with to speak with the patients about how they were feeling that day and if they were having any problems, to determine what adverse reactions, if any, they were having to their medications. The native language spoken in Kwa-Zulu Natal is isiZulu, and while English is taught in the schools, the amount of English spoken by each patient varies. In general, the male patients tended to speak and understand more English than the female patients, and the younger patients understood more English than the older patients. In Kwa-Zulu Natal, the girls often have to drop out of school for one reason or another, which means that they aren’t learning as much English as their male counterparts are. Not being able to communicate with all the patients was probably one of the more frustrating aspects of this trip. We would try to ask the female patients a question and they would just sit there and smile and nod their heads since they didn’t understand what we were saying. Because of this, we ended up speaking more to the male patients who had the best English. We spent time getting to know the patients and had them teach us their language, which they seemed to really appreciate. By the end of the first two weeks, I could greet someone and ask how they were doing. It seemed that even though we didn’t know much, the fact that we took the time to learn their language and learn the names of the nurses and patients meant a lot to all of them. We spent time getting to know the patients and learning their stories and they seemed very appreciative of what we were doing, even though the project that I was working on would not affect them. Hearing their stories and seeing their situation was so humbling and made me want to be able to do something more to help them. The hospitals have so few resources and the doctors are stretched so thin, that the doctor for the MDR-TB ward only performed rounds on the patients once a week, if even that often. When she did her rounds, she blew through the wards and spent less than a minute on each patient, if they were in their beds when she came around. These patients must stay in the hospital for months at a time, with nothing to do. Although the patients are infected with MDR-TB, they were for the most part healthy, and were stuck in the wards for six months. Even after leaving the hospital, they are stigmatized by their friends and family, making it difficult for them to assimilate back into their old lives. It was so interesting to observe the differences between the doctors and nurses in South Africa and the doctors and nurses in the United States. As an American who has had the opportunity to observe highly trained physicians and nurses, the practices in South Africa seemed completely foreign. They do things differently there, and despite the fact that it seems as though they are just going through the motions sometimes, the doctors and nurses really do care for their patients. With MDR-TB treatment, it seems as though the problem is that they don’t have proper training, and they are all learning by experience. This experience reinforced my decision to apply to medical school. Previously, I have interned at the World Health Organization Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, but I didn’t feel as if I was doing enough. Working directly with the patients in South Africa, I could see the direct effects of the work I was doing, and it felt as though I was better able to help people this way. This has been the most amazing opportunity, and I feel so lucky to have been able to work with the people in South Africa. Photo Album:  | Female patients and nurses singing gospel songs and dancing on a Sunday. |  | Patients playing card games to fill the time |  | A nurse preparing to give a patient his daily injection of Kanamycin |  | Patients seeing a stethoscope for the first time, listening to each other’s heartbeats |  | The morning pill regimen for MDR-TB |
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