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To serve and to love
To serve and to love
杜佳琦/ Doctor
I still remember the night before departure, I met up with my friends, lugging a suitcase behind that encased my sleeping bag and mat. Seeing me, my friends asked, “Don’t you see enough patients at work? You still want to go on a medical mission that’s so far away?” Other people also expressed similar concerns, “Leaving at 3:30 in the morning and you would have to sleep on the ground. What kind of trip is this? Won’t you be tired?”
Still tired from jet lag, the first-timer me also started doubting myself, “Yeah, why am I not just resting at home? Do I really want to travel all the way to the other side of the Central Mountain Range?”
Upon arriving at the front of the National Taiwan University, I saw more and more people coming and registering. Their faces showed no signs of fatigue, only smiles. People who had participated before greeted one another like old friends at a class reunion. Seeing the warmth and camaraderie among the volunteers, the doubts in my mind gradually faded.
“Since I’m here, I’m just going to do it and do it well” I told myself. After calming down, I prayed for this medical mission to be peaceful and successful. The caravan of cars, then, departed from Taipei at 3:00 AM sharp.
The caravan drove southwards until we reached the Ali-Shan Hsin-Mei village. After a sleepless night and long, bumpy ride I felt as if I had just finished a whole work shift in the hospital. With my brain swelling and hazy, I knew had to clear my head and start working.
The first stop was the Hsin-Mei tribal village. The clinic site, from the moment we got out of the car, took no more than twenty minutes to set up. Every experienced volunteer knew exactly what to do and skillfully led the team to prepare for the temporary clinic. The whole volunteer clinic process was efficient, allowing the team to serve the most people in the least amount of time. For team of only ten people, it was not easy feat, but the Taiwan Root Medical Peace Corps (TRMPC) accomplished the task as smoothly as drinking water.
My role, under the outreach and progress made by the National Health Insurance and regional mobile medical teams, was not that heavy. Patients who needed Western medical treatments for chronic illnesses, flu, and other diseases were less than the number of people who came for haircuts.
Healthcare in mountainous areas has improved, which is great news. Apart from simply providing medical consultations and prescription drugs, if incorporating long-term care can leave a significant impact, we can shift our focus to have doctors home visit patients who are unable to leave their homes or need long term therapeutic exercises. Including physical therapists can also make our medical services more holistic.
Lastly, I want to thank all the magicians in the cooking crew, the “King Kongs” in the driving crew, the “angels” in the resource crew, the accompany reading crew, the never resting hair-cutting crew, the filming crew, the outdoor research investigation crew, and the strong medical crew. I really thank them all. My gratitude also goes out to TRMPC for giving me this opportunity to move to a new place to learn, to serve, to share, and to love.
If we get the chance, let’s serve and love again.
