VCU GH2DP Outreach Trip to Yoro, Honduras: Summary

Traveling to La Hicaca

Today we returned to San Pedro Sula after a week up in the mountains in rural Yoro, Honduras.

Since 2005 we have been working with approximately 17 villages with little to no access to medical care.

Medicine Clinic in Lomitas

With the aid of our many local, regional, national and international partners we were able to see approximately 700 patients this week. In addition we distributed approximately 90 water filters (each of which will provide an entire household with clean drinking water for 2 years), helped facilitate cervical cancer screening for 80 women and completed a project focused on assessing knowledge and risk factors for dengue and chikungunya infection as well as projects focused on the effectiveness of a new chlorination system and several novel clean water technologies. 

Assembling water filters

Testing new water catchment device

With Dr. Pat Mason and Dr. Ana Sanchez working on our deworming project

Internal Medicine team, Lomitas

Dr. Jason Cook working on water chlorination system project

GH2DP Outreach Team, La Hicaca

GH2DP Pathway Residents and Student Scholars

GH2DP Outreach Trip: Day 2

Last night we arrived in Olanchito late and spent several hours preparing medications and supplies. Today we leave to go to La Hicaca where our first clinic will be held this afternoon.

A major focus of our health outreach work focuses on de-worming. Last year stool testing revealed a high prevalence of whipworm infection despite de-worming with a single dose of albendazole twice yearly. In addition to continuing surveillance we have changed our de-worming protocol to better target whipworm and have initiated a new de-worming tracking project.

After this morning there will likely be no new posts until we get back from the mountains. Will share more about our trip when we return.

GH2DP Outreach Trip to Yoro, Honduras

Today is day one of our outreach trip to rural Yoro, Honduras, on a medical and public health outreach trip with VCU's Global Health and Health Disparities Program (GH2DP). 

The U.S. contingent of our group left early this morning and has arrived in San Pedro Sula. In addition to our group we have approximately 950 pounds of gear and supplies we will transport to Olanchito and organize tonight.

Our plan is to meet the rest of our group and transport our team and supplies up to the rural, mountainous village of La Hicaca tomorrow. From here we will stage our medical and public health outreach work.

3rd Annual VCU Global Health Showcase Recap

Dr. Kerkering speaking on the West Africa Ebola outbreak

Today was VCU's 3rd Annual Global Health Showcase, an opportunity for people around VCU and the greater Richmond community to share and discuss global health projects.

With Dr. Bearman and GH2DP residents and students

The day started with a keynote presentation from Dr. Thomas Kerkering on his work treating Ebola patients in West Africa. Dr. Kerkering is a VCU alumnus and his talk was both moving and compelling. He showed excerpts from a documentary on the early days of the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa (this documentary can be found here).

Subsequently there were several 'break-out'
sessions: one discussing getting involved in global health research, one focused on training opportunities for medical students and residents and one focused on providing healthcare in resource-limited settings.

Viewing posters

There was an excellent poster section exploring global-health related research from around VCU. VCU's Global Health & Health Disparities Program was well represented with our students and residents presenting seven different projects.

The day ended with an excellent session focused on some of the ethical challenges of getting involved in global health work.

With Dr. Bearman and current GH2DP Pathway Residents

3rd Annual VCU Global Health Showcase: Making it Work, Getting it Right

The 3rd annual Virginia Commonwealth University Global Health Showcase is coming up on April 20, 2015. This is an all day event featuring an exciting keynote from Dr. Tom Kerkering discussing his experience with the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, several breakout sessions and a poster session featuring global-health related work from trainees across the university. This year's meeting is called "Making it Work, Getting it Right." The theme of the meeting is giving students and faculty key tools to engage in global health work.

VCU EWB students trailing a novel water catchment device
in Yoro, Honduras, June 2014

Prior showcases have been a wonderful opportunity to network, share ideas and build new relationships. The first showcase led to our program's (the Global Health & Health Disparities Program, GH2DP) current partnership with VCU's Engineers Without Borders (EWB) student chapter. This relationship has led to the development of several novel clean water technologies for use in rural Latin America as well as helped support or ongoing clean water campaign in Yoro, Honduras.

VCU EWB students trailing a new biased filter,
Richmond, VA, 2015

It is not too late to register and come out for the showcase on April 20th! Details about the showcase (including the agenda) can be found here.

VCU GH2DP Outreach Trip to Yoro: Pictures Published

Outreach group in La Hicaca 

An overview of our recent outreach trip to Yoro, Honduras has been published on the GH2DP website and can be found here. A slideshow of pictures from the trip can be found here.

Distributing water filters, Lomitas

Dental clinic, La Hicaca

Engineers Without Borders students with water test plates

Medicine clinic, La Hicaca

Medicine clinic, La Hicaca

Medicine clinic, Lomitas

VCU GH2DP Yoro trip: kissing bugs and a new way to obtain clean water

Here is a brief post from Olanchito, Honduras. I want to share a few more pictures and highlight a few more of the experiences we had on our outreach trip.

Chagas disease is a major issue for the communities we serve in Honduras; this is an infection carried in the gastrointestinal tracts of "kissing bugs." These bugs feed on humans and defecate; the feces is irritating and the Chagas parasite is then inoculated into that person's blood when they scratch. Chronic infection causes significant morbidity and mortality, leading to heart failure and arrhythmias, amongst other complications. Our colleagues from Brock University and the National Autonomous University of Honduras identified these "kissing bugs" for our group-see the picture below.

The picture below is with our colleagues from Brock and the National Autonomous University of Honduras.

The picture below is of a novel rain catchment device that was put into place by VCU Engineers Without Borders students Lucas Potter and Kristina Kelly. They also performed formal interviews to determine the barriers to adopting this technology on the communities we serve. 

More to come, stay tuned! 

VCU GH2DP Yoro outreach trip: back from the mountains!

This is an early recap of our GH2DP outreach trip to the mountains of rural Yoro, Honduras-blogging from the car on the way back to Olanchito.  We just spent the past 5 days providing medical care to people in a region with little to no access to care. All told, we saw approximately 750 people over 6 days of clinic. We reached people from twenty different villages. All adults were screened for diabetes, hypertension, de-wormed and had acute medical issues addressed, as well. We managed and triaged preseptal cellulitis, new-onset seizure disorder, hemorrhage requiring acute transport to a regional hospital and leishmaniasis.

We distributed 83 water filters (each of which can provide clean drinking water to an entire family for 2 years) and facilitated approximately 90 pap smears and dental extractions for 97 patients. We administered over 460 surveys on topics ranging from women's health issues, barriers to water filter use, new water catchment technology and soil transmitted helminths. Dr. Ana Sanchez and colleagues from Brock University examined stool samples on several scores of people, helping to identify recalcitrant worm infections and connecting these patients to appropriate care.

We screened patients for vision issues and distributed 67 pairs of eyeglasses. A new water catchment system was trialed and microbiological testing was performed on over 30 water samples. Students and residents received didactic and clinical lectures on dengue, soil transmitted helminths, diarrhea, malaria and Chagas' disease, among other topics. We had an absolutely terrific group of highly motivated student and resident physicians. Four students in our GH2DP Student Scholars program completed research projects as did our GH2DP pathway resident. All in all a fantastic trip! Will blog more in the near future with pictures. 

VCU Honduras Outreach Projects Presented at Global Health Showcase, International Congress on Infectious Diseases

Audrey Bowes (VCU second year medical student)
presenting on an outreach project on indoor air pollution
in Yoro 

The second VCU Global Health Showcase was held on April 1, 2014, and involved a series of oral presentations as well as a poster session. Multiple students and fellows who have been involved with global health work at our Global Health and Health Disparities Program (GH2DP) site in Yoro, Honduras, presented on their findings.

Audrey Bowes, a VCU second year medical student, presented on an education project focused on indoor air pollution in Yoro.

VCU Engineers Without Borders students
presenting on their work on novel water catchment
technology (left to right: Matt Beckwith,
Katelyn Boone, Viktoria Pretzman,
Kristina Kelly, Lucas Potter)

VCU undergraduate engineering students from the group Engineers Without Borders (EWB) presented on their work creating novel water catchment technology. Members from the EWB group will be traveling to our Yoro, Honduras site in June to trial this technology.

Additionally, Summer Donovan, a pediatric Infectious Diseases fellow at VCU, presented on her 2013 project looking at Chagas disease knowledge and attitudes in Yoro.

With Dr. Gonzalo Bearman at Gaby Halder's
poster on clean water storage, International
Congress on Infectious Diseases, Cape Town,
South Africa 

Gaby Halder (a 4th year medical student who will be graduating in May) also had her research on clean water storage presented at the International Congress on Infectious Diseases meeting that just concluded in Cape Town, South Africa.

Congrats to all of these outstanding student/ fellow researchers!

VCU GH2DP Honduras Group's Work Featured by VCU's Division of Community Engagement

Earlier this month our group traveled to the Yoro area of northern Honduras to meet with our community partners and ministry of health officials and to lay the groundwork for our June 2014 trip. The VCU Division of Community Engagement is now featuring our work on their site (this can be found here).

Also, the VCU undergraduate chapter of Engineers Without Borders was awarded a Quest Innovation Fund grant to support their development of novel rain catchment technology for use in Yoro. Congratulations to all of the students involved in this project!!!

Inaugural VCU Global Health Symposium

VCU Global Health and Health Disparities research team reunion
(from left to right: Dr. Bearman, Kate, Jackie, Gaby, Audrey)

Today the inaugural VCU Global Health Symposium was held in Richmond, Virginia, bringing together faculty and students from across the university who are involved in global health efforts.

One of the key goals of the meeting was to provide a platform for sharing ideas, networking and developing the framework for future collaboration. The meeting featured short talks focused on research at both the community and international levels, and a poster session.

Dr. Moskowitz presenting on a national rheumatic fever
project in the St. Vincent and the Grenadines

Researchers presented on both local community health projects (including our clean water project in northern Honduras, as well as a skin cancer prevention project in Peru and a dental project in Jamaica) and a later session focused on country-wide global health efforts. These included a project focused on rheumatic fever surveillance in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, trauma infrastructure development in Latin America, student education projects in India and medical simulation education in Poland. The meeting was capped off with an inspiring talk on global health research by the dean of the VCU School of Medicine Dr. Jerome Strauss.

Twenty students and residents presented 22 posters related to global health research and health outreach. Our northern Honduras group was well represented with 4 students presenting 5 posters (way to go Jackie/ Gaby/ Audrey/ Kate!).

I left the meeting inspired, re-charged and with some fresh ideas; better yet, our group now has some potential new collaborators. I am already looking forward to the 2014 symposium!