It is hard to believe that I have already been back in the United States for nearly a week! I am tremendously grateful for a productive and highly informative summer in Malawi. I thank my mentors—both those from Rice and the individuals with whom I worked in Malawi—for their patience, support, advice, and kindness. As I look forward to spending the coming academic year in Colombia, I want to write about a few of the wide-ranging lessons that I will take from my experiences in a low-resource setting this summer.

 

First, the tremendous constraints posed by limited staffing must be a primary consideration when pursuing projects in settings like Malawi. The WHO reports that there are only 2 doctors and 38 nurses per 100,000 Malawians. (At this rate, the city of Houston would have just 42 doctors!) This extreme shortage of medical professionals results from cost constraints, a limited national capacity to train a large volume of new staff, and of the large-scale migration of trained doctors to better-paying markets. The medical professionals that I worked with demonstrated a consistent commitment to patient care despite their overstretched schedules. Nevertheless, it was critical to understand the value—and scarcity—of our mentors’ time and ascertain whether our contributions effectively reduced the severity these challenges. In the future, the limited amount of staff time must continue to be a central consideration of Global Health Technologies design projects.

 

Second, the courtesy and respect afforded to Kamal, Teresa, and I inspired me daily. We embarked upon creating an electronic medical records system for St. Gabriel’s palliative care program within the first week of our internship in June. As we refined and adapted DataPall for St. Gabriel’s, we learned of much more widespread need for this type of patient monitoring, data management, and reporting. In July, we traveled to Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre to implement DataPall at Tiyanjane Clinic. The support and attention the staff in both hospitals gave us was humbling. The staff at Tiyanjane connected us with the Ministry of Health in Lilongwe who eagerly agreed to meet with us to discuss the project near the end of our stay in Malawi. The openness of all of these individuals to meet with a team of undergraduates with no obvious medical qualifications impressed me and inspired us to continue to improve and refine our product. I hope to emulate their tremendous openness and respect in my further educational and professional pursuits.

 

Finally, I would be remiss in not acknowledging the warmth of all of the Malawians that I met. Malawi certainly earns its reputation as the “warm heart of Africa.” The driver that drove us to Salima explained that Malawians know well that “a smile costs nothing.” In the face of severe daily challenges, the kindness of Malawian colleagues, friends, and strangers is astounding. I can only aspire to this level of friendliness in my everyday encounters.

 

Thank you to all that made this journey possible. I will be forever grateful for the generosity of the Beyond Traditional Borders program for a wonderful summer.