Ryanne Journal 2

The Global Healing clinic may not look too impressive to someone coming from North America or from Europe, but it’s important to take into account that the greatest resources are not the donated medications and equipment but the doctors who volunteer their time. I have been constantly amazed at the care shown by the GH physicians. I often question people’s motivations, but that effort is wasted when I observe the GH volunteers pour over medical texts, consulting with each other frequently, before deciding upon the optimal treatment for a given patient. Concern over certain patients even keeps one of the physicians up well past midnight. I assumed that extensively-trained physicians would be so reflexive with their diagnoses that the patient-doctor interaction would be reduced to a question and answer session, a checklist of yeses and nos, adding up to a prescription. But, I couldn’t have been more wrong. These doctors understand that medicine is about treating the person as well as the patient.