Stride: Medical electives

Becci Wittams had an unforgettable time as a medical elective in Peru.

The fact that I wasn't actually a qualified doctor yet didn't really seem to bother Felix, my supervisor. After two days under his watchful eye, he announced that I was quite competent, and he was leaving his patients in my care for the next eight weeks. He was off to do what was really on his heart, to preach the gospel.

His patients were the people living in Alto Trujillo, situated on the outskirts of a city on the north coast of Peru. The houses varied from bamboo shacks to breeze block and concrete squares, all the same size. There was electricity of sorts but there was no running water, and trucks came each day to sell water to the people. The roads were sandy tracks, and had letters rather than street names.

The project, 'San Lucas', was housed in a concrete square, its roof part corrugated iron, part bamboo. Thankfully rain was fairly unheard of. I had a dark little consultation room and there was a tiny pharmacy, with all sorts of dangerous drugs on open shelves in a rough semblance of order that I could never entirely fathom.

Carmela was a newly qualified nurse and saw patients with me. She was invaluable with some Spanish I didn't understand, or for another opinion. We went on lots of home visits together, all over the slum. We had a shared fear of the scary dogs so many people had, and quite often had to ask people to remove them before we went in for fear of being savaged!

We also did a mission week up to a remote village in the Andes, two hours by truck from the nearest town, and an hour's walk from the nearest road. The bi-annual San Lucas trip was the villagers' only opportunity to see a doctor. I was told to pack up enough medicine for a week's worth of seeing patients. I had no idea what demand there would be, and we ran out of a lot of things. We arrived in the evening, and the next morning I was horrified to be called away from my breakfast at 7am to be shown there was already a queue of 20 people to see me, some of whom said they had walked five hours 'to see the English doctor'.

Over the week I saw hundreds of people, some I could help and some not, except to pray. I remember vividly being brought a boy who had been blind from birth and asked what I could do. I explained that all I could offer them was prayer, that there are blind people even in England. I think they thought I was holding out on them, and the boy did not get his sight back.

I saw infertile couples, people with TB, sexually transmitted diseases, arthritis, strokes. For so many I felt that the English medical student and the bag of drugs were woefully inadequate. I will never forget the raw humanity I saw.

I wouldn't change my decision to go to Alto for my elective, though at times it was tough and lonely. I made decisions about people's lives like I never had done before, without the investigations and equipment we so readily fall back on here.

It was like practising medicine with one hand tied behind my back without those things, and I should have realised sooner that God was there to help me. At times I tried to rely on my own resources and not on God, and I regret that now. I struggled alone for a long time with the burden of responsibility I felt. When I did turn to God He was always ready to help, to forgive my mistakes and I was blind to take so long to see it.

I returned humbler than I left, more aware of the needs and more aware of my inadequacies. I love Latin America, and the people there. I hope to go back and serve there long term, but this time I'll do it in God's strength and not on my own.