Return to Tanzania

ODE TO PHYSICIAN ASSISTANT STUDENTS

Congrats on acceptance to PA school! Your undergrad grades prove you are no fool. Helping people is your ultimate goal, whether chronic illness or the common cold. In your white coat, the whole world you will change, aspirations high and goals within range. But first, you need to learn all the rules. Work hard, study, and acquire the tools to make a huge difference in the precious lives of children, the elderly, husbands, and wives. It’s surely no secret PA school is hard, far more than good grades on a report card. Pathology, Physio, Anatomy Neuro, Psych, and Pharmacology The foundation is set, but there is more to do! Physical exam skills and EKG, too. How many hours can one person study? After 3 a.m., the subjects get muddy. Tests, exams, and practicals galore! Just when you think you can’t take any more Clinical rotations! From the classroom, I’m free! (almost) Medicine, peds, and psychiatry Outpatient, GYN, ER, and more, skills you are gaining through sickness and gore. Your preceptors love you, they wish you could stay. Soon enough they will call you a true blue PA. Graduation comes faster than you could have known, professors and parents, so proud, how you have grown. One more little hurdle for your final dance You’re ready, you have this! Now go pass your PANCE! A longer white coat, your patients will see Congrats, you made it! An official PA-C!!!

— Abby Saunders, PA-C

This piece was previously published by the Physician Assistant Education Association (PAEA). Saunders, A. (2019, August 28). Ode to Physician Assistant Students. Retrieved from paeaonline.org

Return to Tanzania

In 2017, Sister Magdalena Chubwa called home to her rural village of Nguruka, in Tanzania, to wish her family Merry Christmas. “Everybody was crying,” she remembers. “They said, ‘There is death everywhere.’”

A cholera outbreak was sweeping the village, ultimately claiming the lives of 25 children, and little help was available. The local clinic has doctors, but hardly any equipment or medication.

These realities motivated Sister Magdalena to pursue an education in healthcare administration and ultimately, at Seton Hall University, a PhD in Health Sciences.

Meanwhile, she launched Justice and Development for All (JUDEA), a communitybased operation in her home parish of Saint Mukasa, to help improve local living conditions and health care. “I asked the parish priest if we could work together, with parishioners and volunteers who are interested,” she says.

JUDEA, beginning with basics, received a grant to renovate the health center, adding modern plumbing. “All the pipes were broken; there was no running water,” she says. “The doctors couldn’t wash their hands.”

JUDEA also created a community clothes-washing station connected to a septic system. “People used to wash their clothes all over the place,” Sister Magdalena says. “If there was diarrhea, the water would go everywhere.” That helped infections like cholera spread quickly. JUDEA is also installing a toilet in each school.

Sister Magdalena is conducting research in the area to better determine the area’s needs. Meanwhile, JUDEA has supplied the health clinic with blood pressure monitors and glucometers, and has launched community health education programs on topics like skin infections and diabetes management. In the village, financial resources go further than even Sister Magdalena expected. After raising funds to build one toilet, she asked the locals which school should receive it. “They said, ‘Oh, sister, that will be enough money to build at least 12,’ ” she remembers. “The parents helped make the bricks. They were so happy.” ■ — Kimberly Olson