SeniorToni Griffin odminis1ers a Hepatitus Bshot to 0 Nepolese boy ot the Himali Urban Child Development Centre in Nepal during the summer of 2005. The Centre helped more than 60 children the day she worked there. -(ourfltsy ofToni Griffin Real– World Senior gains life experience s she walked toward the burn unit, she passed parents who were waiting to see (heir children. She gOt to the door and waited as a nurse unlocked the padlocked door and srepped inside. One of the patients. a 4-year-old child, was crying, screaming, thrashing and fighting for her life. She held the girl's arms as the doctor began to clean her burns. Senior Toni DiMaria Griffin spent her summer of 2005 in Katmandu, Nepal, working at Khanti Children's Hospital for four weeks. While she was there, she gave immunization shots, assisted docrors and experienced a different healthcare system. Griffin, a premed majo r, said she had always imagined herself helping people from a young age and was always interested in the human body. "Illness and broken boneswerealways cool when I was little," Griffin said. "Just the medical technol– ogy and science always grabbed my attention. I've always been SOCially conscious above stuff." In early 2005, Griffin started looking for an internship that combined pediatrics and public health. She came across a Stanford University Web site for a children's hospital in Nepal, a country of more than 27 million people located between China and India near the Himalayan Mountains. Griffin fou nd out that it was the only children's hospital in Nepal, one of the poorest countries in the world. She said she applied because it was an opportunity toget a sense ofpublic health in a developing country as well as for the adventure ·into the unknown. "In America, we really don't have a sense of the issues of public health that developing countries do," Griffin said. "The only way that you're really going to know, is to go over there and experience it for yourself." Griffin Aew to Nepal May 17, 2005. and was there for four weeks. While there, she worked in me immunization clinic giving hepatitis shots and other immunizations to the children. She went with the public health nurse to two orphanages to administer the H epatitis B shot to the children. Griffin also observed surgeries and made rounds with the doctors. One of the most difficult parts of her internship, she said, was helping in the burn unit changing dressings and restraining children because of the great pain they had to endure. "Theydon't have pain management," Griffin said. "It's expensive, and you can get away with mistreating a 4-year-old because theydon't vote. I was thinking, 'Can I pay for morphine for these kids because they really need something stronger than what they are getring because [the doctors) would give the burn child ren the equivalent ofAdvil." While Griffin was working at Khanti, she said she experienced the problems of health care in a developing coumry. One ofthe main problems she deal t with was a lack of cleanli ness. "There was alcohol, and there were supplies, but I never saw nurses washing their hands," Griffin said. "Maybe once in the morning they washed, bur not frequenc enough in my opinion." One thing that Griffin did while she was there was dean some ofthe equipmenc such as a scale that the children were weighed on. "It was JUSt filthy; it was grimy; it was grubby," Griffin said. "They never cleaned it. Soone day I kind of broke down and grabbed the alcohol, grabbed a swab and cleaned the whole thing." Griffin said she struggled with how the doctors and nurses treated the children especially in regards to overall work ethics and medical ethics. "It was just hard to see, especially with children," Griffin said. "It almost [matched] the theory that children were expendable. They have the resources to curb [children dying], but there's still kind of that feeling that it's just a child. In their culture, if you're an old person, you have a lot of respect, but children have none. It was different because here 'All men are created equal' is our philosophy and not theirs. Made in the image ofGod is not something they all think about." Griffin said she took many thingswithher after her imernship to Nepal and gained a perspective on many things, such as the causes of poor health care. "I really saw that the poverty was not because there weren't resources, but because it was more of an attitude," Griffin said. "It was hard for me to think that poor health care was more of a cuJtural problem than a resource problem." Even though Griffin had to deal with the poorer standards of health care in regards to children, she did not regret it. Griffin planned to graduate in May and wamed to go to medical school to one day work in pediatric medicine, emergency medicine or public health care. -Cynthia Noah seniors~1I1
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