The DCH

Today Kris and I took on the DCH together... the Department of Community Health. Basically they practice what we would call rural family medicine. Vans or SUVs take teams of providers including a physican, a nurse, a lab tech, a social worker, ect. out to the surrounding rural villages for daily clinics. The town we visited today, Badar, is sizeable and actually has a clinic building there which they use. In other towns, they take chairs and or sometimes they just see patients inside the vehicle. They make do with what they have. The "Madame" that runs the department, a female physician who specializes in this type of medicine, was wonderful. We sat and talked with her (and of course had some chai tea) and she basically said she was not concerned with us learning medicine... htn, heart disease, diabetes, ect.... since we've learned that and see that in the States. She would rather us learn about the practical aspects or logistics of rural life in india, the type of preventative medicine they provide, the problems that plague these communities, and the programs the hospital has developed to help improve the quality of life for these people. After one day in Badar with one of the social workers I can tell you her thinking is right, I learned more this morning than I have in all of my days in clinic combined. If the power wouldn't keep going out, I would tell you more but it does so I'm going to leave it at that for now.