Exciting News!

Creating a Culture of Service

Our chapter is proud to announce the acceptance of a $7500 grant to renovate the grounds at Oasis Catolico

Our service chair, Carolyn Adam, worked hard to submit a proposal for a sustainable service grant graciously donated by an alumnus to Volunteer UGA.

Oasis Catolico is a local community center that serves the impoverished Hispanic community of Athens.  This center is home to a preschool and after-school tutoring center for Hispanic children.  It also serves as a center for community parties, food drop-offs, and Sunday Mass.  Currently, the grounds of Oasis are very run-down, and there is no real playground for the children.

Throughout the next year, the members of MEDLIFE at UGA will be working to build a playground for the children, renovate the volleyball court, add new picnic tables, and improve the driveway to the center.  The chapter will also be engaging the Oasis community members in health education programs.

With this initiative, we hope to further engage our current members in the Athens community, and increase our member base by recruiting volunteers for our exciting plans.

So again, what're you waiting for? Come get involved! 

Starting with a Bang

Welcome Back Medlifers! 

September was an eventful month for the Medlife team.  We held two interest meetings, we had our first general body meeting, and we hosted a dinner/presentation by two of Medlife's national board members, Tommy Flint and Joe Tylutki.  We had a phenomenal turnout for all the events, and are so excited about our seventy-three (73) new members!

Tommy and Joe really loved witnessing first hand Medlife's flagship chapter of the southeast, and are really proud of our chapter.

We've also started fundraising this month.  Our first main scarf sale is tomorrow morning, at the Athens Farmer's Market in Bishop Park.  We had a lot of success with scarf sales last year, and we are definitely looking forward to being able to contribute more to the MedFund.  We also have a tailgate planned for the Mississippi State game, where we'll be selling pancakes.

We have so many opportunities for members to get involved this year, which is why we decided to establish committees at our first general body meeting.  Garrett Melick will be heading up the 5K committee, Danny Guidot the advertising committee, Stephanie Elam the local service committee, and Carolyn Adam the Global Health Week committee.  

Garrett and the 5K committee are hard at work getting the 5K up and running (no pun intended).  The race is scheduled for December 3rd at 9 am.  The course will be entirely on campus, and we're planning on having lots of goodies (food, hot chocolate, coffee, etc.) to make it an ideal relaxing winter morning run.  

Danny is SO pumped to have talented techies working with him this year, and he's already been advertising Medlife like crazy.

Stephanie and her team are working on getting a nutritional pamphlet together to distribute at Oasis Catolico, the local Hispanic community center.  Stephanie is also working to establish more volunteer opportunities in Athens-Clarke County for Medlife members.

Carolyn and her team are hard at work organizing the Global Health Week, scheduled for Tuesday, November 8th through Thursday, November 10th.  This week is all about raising awareness on campus about global health issues not only in Peru, but around the world.  We're inviting all the other global health-oriented student groups on campus to participate, and we're so excited to see what a statement we can make together.

Suffice it to say, Medlife at UGA is hard at work to make sure we have an amazing semester.  So, what are you waiting for? Come get involved!

5K Updates

The first 30 people to register will only have to pay 10 dollars so get your registration in quickly!

To qualify:

To turn in your registration form and $10, you must bring the form and the money to Hill Residence Hall in an envelope addressed to Medlife, Silki Modi. Remind the desk assistant to put the registration form in Silki's box. She is an RA for Hill and member of the Medlife Exec Board. You may also give the form and money to any other Medlife board member (at the bottom of this email). 

All runners will also receive a t-shirt but only the first 50 registrants will get theirs on race day.

Run for Global Health 5k

Don't forget to register for our 5k on April 22, 2011 at Sandy Creek Park! Register online or print a registration form and either mail it in or give it to a Medlife club member.

The race will be at 5 p.m. and your registration fee includes electronic chip timing and finish chutes, plus free food and drinks.

 We will be offering a group discount! If 5 people submit their registration form together, in the same envelope, then it will cost $100 instead of $125.





If you register before April 8th you will get a free t-shirt! So start registering!

Day 7/ Pictures

So things here have been kinda crazy since we got back, we are all getting back in to classes and the all-nighter we pulled going to the airport made us all sick but here are the pictures as promised. I also want to give a quick update on our last day.

First I realized that I forgot to tell you about our shower adventures on Friday! When we got back to the hostel after our mountain climbing experience we were absolutely covered in dirt and sweat and desperately needed showers before leaving for the market. We went to our rooms to discover that the hostel owner had refilled the pool and used all of the water so that we could not use them. A group of us were so desperate that we jumped in the pool and used the hose to shampoo our hair. We also helped each other with rinsing and shampooing. We got a chance to realize what hard work it is to wash your hair and how much help we needed from each other. Who knew that one of our best and funniest memories would be of the time that the showers ran out of water.

On Saturday the group divided in to two options: a excursion with horseback riding, ATVing, wine tasting, and rafting, or a tour of the historical part of Lima. I was with the group that walked around Lima and discovered what a beautiful city it is. We walked around some squares around the presidential palace, the old parliament buildings, went to a cathedral, and catacombs. In the catacombs, we had a fantastic tour guide that had obviously memorized the English text and squeakily described the wood fixtures in the rooms without changing the tone in her voice. We would be in rooms with gorgeous books and oil paintings and she would tell us how the wood was imported from Nicaragua. She also taught us about the Spain country, the 12 Postals, and that you can tell the gender of a skull by its hair.

Over all the trip was such a unbelievable experience. Everyone has said what a life-changing experience this has been: whether they decided that they want to go in to dentistry instead of medicine, want to work for Medlife, or are just more interested in community service. We are also so bonded to the incredible people that we have worked with, we have best friends at Miami, Syracuse, NYU, and Rutgers and can't wait to visit each other. The staff that we worked with was indescribably wonderful. We owe a lot to the doctors, bus driver, Tommy, Alberto, and Joe. We are already planning a reunion brigade and getting back to life in Athens has been very difficult. We want to be back in Peru!!!!!!

Some of the medical supplies that we collected for the brigade

The view off a cliff in Miraflores

Shelby, Amanda, and Amanda working at vitals

Our clinic site on Wednesday

Amara, Amanda, Stephanie, Shelby, Amanda, Carolyn, Katie, Frances, and Savannah in front of our tent at the end of the day

Thursday's clinic site

Shelby and Andrea at the tooth brushing station

Some of us with Alberto at the water park

Patients waiting to be seen

All of us taking the trees up the mountain on Friday

Us at the top of the mountain on the last day (notice Danny soaking up the attention from the Peruvian women)

The stairs ceremony

The backyard hair washing station

The oldest hotel in Lima

Chelsi, Amara, Amanda, Frances, Katie, Carolyn, and Savannah in the presidential square

A cathedral in central Lima

Relaxing in the backyard of the hostel

Day 6

Since I've given a description of all of the stations from this week I thought I would focus on the stairs today. All week we have had several students working to build stairs in Pamploma which is extremely steep. The areas here are extremely dangerous without stairs, Medlife works with a little girl that was born three months premature because her mom fell down the mountain as well as several elderly people who have gotten severely injured. The importance of the stairs (and handrails) took on new meaning when we arrived at the site on Monday to find that a man had fallen down another flight and died the night before. Many of the stairs that are built are uneven and do not have any handrails so they are not that much better than just walking up and down the cliffs.

The students working on the stairs helped mix and pour concrete, dye the top of the stairs, dig holes, and plant trees. It is very hard work and many of them have huge blisters and got very sore from the hard manual labor. They also got a chance to work with the community who came out to help build and fed everyone lunch each day. They were not able to get the handrails up but they will go in sometime this next week.

After the clinic today we were told to pick up some trees and dirt to carry up to the site of the stairs that will be built next week. We all grabbed something and quickly started walking up a set of stairs, just as we were starting to get tired we got to the end of the stairs and realized we had to climb an unbelievably steep incline. Most people were walking on all fours because it was that hard to balance on and we were completely exhausted when we got to the top. It gave us a new appreciation for what the Peruvian people do each day, most students here are in pretty good shape but still could not handle this climb. We were able to go back down on some stairs but they were horribly built, the steps were steep and uneven and there were not handrails or landings.

While we were up at the top of the mountain we also got to experience the Peruvian women's appreciation for white men or "gringos." They did not realize that we understood what they were saying and kept making comments about how interested they were in the guys. They loved Danny in particular and kept trying to help him do things so they could touch him. As you can imagine it provided hours worth of amusement.

Afterwards we went over to this weeks stair site for the inauguration. The people here desperately want to give back to us so they threw a little party where we smashed a bottle of champagne and ate some traditional food. We had a lot of fun and got a chance to hang out with doctors in a more casual setting.

Tonight we are heading to a Discotecha and will all be going on separate tours of Lima in the morning. None of us can believe that our time here is almost up, it is going to be so hard to leave here!

Day 5

The community leaders did not do a very good job advertising our clinic today and we had almost no patients. We also had a crazy set up; we were at the bottom of an unpassably steep hill and had only one tent to work with and not enough houses for the doctors to use.  We were able to get the tent set up, for the doctors, on a slight angle and had to put pharmacy and vitals up against the wall of a store so we could get a little bit of shade. One women was on her way to the store and just happened to discover us sitting there, after a few questions she was very excited that we were there and signed up to see the doctor. She kept repeating how lucky it was that she had decided to go to the store that day.

When I worked vitals this morning we had about 1 person every ten minutes so there was a lot of down time. The good news was that it gave us an opportunity to talk to the doctors, learn about Peruvian culture and brush up on our Spanish by asking questions. I was disappointed about the lack of patients this afternoon because I had my first dental rotation and only got to see two patients. I really wish that I had gotten to work there more days because it was absolutely fascinating. There was a lot to learn about the teeth and we got to fill out forms in Spanish. The students on my shift ended up talking to the dentist for 3 hours and learned that she desperately wants to go to Disney World but has been unable to gain entry in to the US. She actually made it to customs one time but they turned her down (she had a valid visa) because she was too young and they were worried that she might stay.

At the end of our clinic we went over to the other clinic which had run a little bit longer and were able to play with the kids there. Savannah had some excitement when she opened her prepackaged granola bar and found a worm in it which was just hilarious to all of the rest of us.  As we were leaving the clinic a little girl gave Mike a drawing and a poem which were both unbelievably beautiful. She wrote about the struggles of life and how even if you must fight you have to continue on your path. We were all touched and told him to put it on his wall in case he ever needs encouragement.

Tonight we are going to a water park which is a display of fountains and light shows. It's something that the government built as a tourist attraction and is supposed to be very beautiful. I am excited to see it but I can't help but think of how many people in Pamploma or Villa El Salvador could use that water.