Borsum Blog 2: The duality of medicine

Within the hospital, we are encountering conditions we studied and were tested on but will likely never see back home. Hydatid cysts from Echinococcus are commonplace, malaria cases are surging, and we even saw a child with bladder exstrophy. Seeing these conditions in real life, after memorizing them for Step 1, is incredibly gratifying.

One of the most profound realizations I’ve had is the universality of medicine. Last week, I attended a lecture on diabetes, and it struck me how the pathophysiology and biochemistry of the disease remain constant—regardless of race, religion, or geography. While treatment options may vary due to resource limitations, the fundamental principles remain unchanged. The very same content I learned in BSB 130 was being presented in a conference room in Sodo, Ethiopia. I had a similar realization in the operating room—when assisting in an open abdominal surgery, I saw that beneath the surface, the anatomy is the same everywhere. Medicine and anatomy, at their core, are beautifully predictable and uniform.

Yet, despite its universality, the differences are impossible to ignore. One case that has stayed with me is that of a 12- or 13-year-old girl admitted with cerebral malaria. Her parasite load was so high that it clogged her arteries, leading to multiple strokes. Her family was eager to take her home—not because she had fully recovered, but because she bore the responsibility of caring for her family and younger siblings while her mother worked in another country. It was difficult for me to see her robbed of a childhood by both circumstance and a disease that is preventable and treatable. This is not a case we would commonly see in the U.S., and coming to terms with that reality has been challenging for me to accept.

It has only been a week, yet I feel as though I have learned years’ worth of lessons—about medicine, about people, and about culture. While somethings we witness seem odd or even wrong, the missionaries here remind us that we should not judge other cultures, but we can reflect on them. And so, I have been thinking a lot.