Student Spotlights
IUSM-Northwest student participates in a memorial medical mission to the Himalayan Mountain region
Jan. 23, 2014
If Neal Shah were to hand in a school essay titled, “How I Spent My Summer Vacation,” it might seem like a tall tale.
Medical student Neal Shah helps provide medical care to villagers who had waited months to see a health professional. | Photo By IU Northwest
Getting stranded in the mountains by a monsoon that lasted 101 hours -- and nearly having his campsite obliterated by floodwaters and wayward boulders -- isn’t exactly what the medical student from Munster, Ind., had in mind.
But he also trekked across some of the most breathtaking landscapes in the world, camped on mountain peaks among the clouds and learned about cultures so vastly different than his own in the most authentic way possible.
Most importantly, he provided medical care to villagers in Northern India who live several hours away from any kind of hospital, clinic or physician’s office while gaining valuable hands-on skills.
Shah, second-year student at the IU School of Medicine-Northwest, took the 15-day trip through the Himalayan Health Exchange, an organization that brings medical missions to remote areas throughout the Himalayan Mountain region.
Elevation 7,000 feet
Having completed his first year at IUSM-Northwest, Shah jumped at the opportunity to join the 30-person team that included students, instructors and physicians from the U.S., Canada and England.
Upon arriving in India and setting out to the first site, Shah quickly learned that this would truly be a “roughing it” type of experience.
“We took a paved road for maybe 15 minutes, and the remaining 6 1/2 hours was on a dirt road,” Shah said.
After setting up camp at an elevation of about 7,000 feet, the clinic opened its tents to villagers who had waited months to ask health professionals about what had ailed them, most commonly back and joint pain, typical maladies for those who spend their days doing hard manual labor, mostly in insufficient footwear. Parasites and dry eyes were other common problems.
Shah took in some breathtaking landscapes during his trip to Northern India. | Photo By IU Northwest
A translator assisted each doctor-in-training, like Shah, who was allowed to assess patients and offer his diagnosis and treatment plan to an attending physician, who would concur with the plan before allowing the doctor trainees to speak directly to the patients and their families.
Shah said the experience gave him a taste of how the lessons he is learning are implemented in real life.
“In medical school, the first two years is book work and the second two years is applying what you’ve learned,” he said. “What we did there is really what we’d do in our third year here ... really, truly treating a patient.”
Lesson in compassion
When it was time to pack up the camp and head to the second site, Shah and his colleagues put their belongings in a car and set off on foot for their next destination, another 2,000 feet up the mountain.
After arriving at the second campsite, much like the first in terms of medical facilities, Shah began to also see the educational benefits of interacting with people with vastly different experiences and culture than his own.
Shah said that no matter where you are in the world, people share many of the same problems; they just express it in different ways. Taking the time to listen to each patient provides a lesson in compassion for future physicians, he added, noting the experience provided him a deeper respect for those who've suffered adversity in their lives.
“As a future physician, the more I interact with all types of people, the more I will understand about the different experiences that a person could have,” he said.
Helping others
Shah greets a group of children. | Photo By IU Northwest
Looking back on the experience, and recounting the unexpected hardships, Shah said he would consider participating in another mission trip.
Although he remains undecided about which medical specialty tp pursue, he added the experience in India made one thing clear: He prefers medicine to surgery because of the face-to-face interaction with people.
“It was rewarding in the sense that I was helping others,” Shah said, “but that didn’t seem out of the ordinary for me, because that is what I’m going to do for the rest of my life.”
A 2012 graduate of the chemistry program at IU Northwest, Shah also expressed appreciation for undergraduate experience, with one of the biggest benefits to his future being the diverse nature of his education.
“IU Northwest provided me with a selection of classes that were both science-related and non-science. I took business, math, art, social science, cultural and philosophy classes in addition to my core science classes,” he said.
“All those subjects that IU Northwest offered will contribute to my interactions with all the diverse people I encounter -- now and in the future.”
