Collaborative & Sweet (Day 3)

"No big achievement was ever accomplished by one man." - Zafrula (founder of GK)
During an awards presentation today I got to hear from many who have done influential work with GK. From the founders, to the leader of the French committee, to a humorous man named Steve who has spent much of his last 40 years living in Bangladesh. Each one opened my eyes to the changes that still need to be made here in Bangladesh and worldwide. GK has improved health care status in Bangladesh by leaps and bounds but as with any place there is always room for improvement. GK was born out of field hospital in the war for Bangladesh's freedom. It now has a hospital, medical school, paramedic school, community health worker program, over 100 elementary schools it runs, its own pharmaceutical plant that produces medicines cheap so the villagers can actually afford them, dormitories, a conference center, a cafe, the list goes on and on. It is an impressive feat that is for sure. But the important thing I realized is it was built by a group of caring, hard-working individuals over a 40 year time span. A group that was committed to improving the lives of the Bangladeshi's and who understood that a good health status is a basic human right everyone should be able to obtain. The speakers opened my eyes to the importance of working as a team. While their might be visionaries like Paul Farmer in Global Health, nothing great is done over night and no global health dream is completed by the work of one single person.
After hearing from all the presentations, Dr. Chowdry (a professor of Community Medicine) gave me a tour of the medical school today. We went into town, got to experience the local market, and he even bought me my first Bangladeshi dessert (chum chum - a mistee (the Bangla word for sweet)). It was a ball of milk solids that looked like a miniature skinned potato & had soaked in simple sugar syrup all day (straight shot down the road to diabetes, but totally worth it! It was delicious!) So my assumptions were proved wrong. Bangladesh has lots of sweet options to pick from other than rice and vegetables each meal... that is if you can afford it. Speaking of sweet, their medical campus also took me by surprise! The facility was brand new and beautiful!

I learned a lot by getting to read through Dr. Chowdry's students' end research projects. At first glance the students seemed just like medical students in the US (dressed in short white coats and noses deep in their textbooks during our entire tour). However, after getting to read their insights in their research theses I realized these students get it, on a much larger scale health care wise - they get it. Unlike a lot of students I have seen studying in the US they care about more than just getting through the stressful week, more than acing their Friday morning exam - they care. That's it. Period. End of Story. Final projects ranged from the importance and longevity of breastfeeding in poor, rural populations, to which type of medical care access Bangladeshi villagers utilized. But the woven thread in each project was the time commitment and the level of caring. They took a lot of their time to go out to the villages and meet with their research populations. Not just to collect accurate data but to listen. To hear these rural villagers out. To see how they accessed health care and if they didn't have access to a good health status, what health determinants kept them from achieving it. You could hear it in their writing - they sat down with all of the villagers not because they wanted thorough data for a good grade but because they truly cared about these people and the future of their country's health.
One of the opening speaker's today stated: "I have fallen in love a few times in my life... one of those times was when I first visited Bangladesh." This trip and my trips to Haiti have given me a similar feeling. I have fallen in love with this type of world travel. But more specifically I have a deep appreciation for the type of medicine they teach over here. The kind that emphasizes a close relationship with one's patient. The kind that teaches medical students and paramedics to go out of their way just to listen to their patients and their communities. The kind that teaches them to be collaborative. The kind that teaches them to care.