2013 Dooley Society medical mission stipend recipients
Each year Notre Dame alumni in medicine award stipends to a group of current Notre Dame students or alumni in medical school to cover funds for international medical missions. This past Saturday (Sept. 5) before the Notre Dame vs. Texas game, several of the students convened in the Jordan Hall of Science to present their medical mission experiences.
Rich Schroeder, ’11, a current medical student at the University of Chicago, volunteered at the Rosebud Indian reservation in South Dakota where he delivered his first baby.
“It was a profound experience that planted a seed in me,” said Scroeder. “This (obstetrics, or a branch of medicine concerned with childbirth) is probably what I want to go into.”
Junior Brian Hickman, senior Briana Cortez, and graduate student John Clifford traveled to Quito, Ecuador with the Timmy Global Health program, an Indianapolis-based nonprofit. The team provided consultations, fluoride stations, and pharmaceuticals to Ecuadorians and had the opportunity to engage in cultural activities.
Locally, senior Patricia Amorado volunteered at Healthlinc in Mishawaka, Ind. where she interned for a smoking cessation program and shadowed physicians.
Michael Isaacs, ’12, a current Indiana University medical student traveled to Santa Ana, El Salvador with a team whose mission was to provide free healthcare to the poor of Santa Ana. Beyond the medical component of the trip, introducing patients to God was “the best part of the trip” for Isaacs.
“It’s really great to see physicians actually living out their faith; it’s not something they stop practicing once they put on that white coat” Isaacs said. “It reaffirmed my passion for medicine.”
On the eastern side of the globe, senior Nestor Agbayani volunteered at Adventist Medical Center in Manila, Philippines where he shadowed Dr. Bibly Macaya and worked on an ecological study between geographic location and the relationship among social determinants, health services, and health status.