Schweitzer Fellow finds added inspiration on mission trip to Dominican Republic

Adediwura Adegbite, a medical student at Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine (MSUCOM), experienced a renewed passion for “travel medicine” or providing medical care in distant underserved regions in the midst of her Albert Schweitzer Fellowship experience. It was fitting that she has an opportunity to join her medical school classmates and faculty in San Pedro, a city in Central Dominican Republic. MSUCOM sponsors a clinical rotation for its students there in collaboration with a local university there.

Adegbite, a native of Nigeria, came to MSUCOM because it has one of the most extensive foreign clinical rotations which allows medical students to practice skills of diagnostics and treatment plans, but also witnesses the tremendous need that exists in impoverished areas of the world. For Adegbite, it reinforces an aspect of medicine she intends to practice once she completes her training.

“This experience retriggered my passion for travel medicine and helping underserved communities, having grown up in that situation. That was the highlight of my year – the reason I came to MSU. They have so many travel experiences.” The medical students on the Dominican Republic mission conducted medical histories and physical exams, laboratory tests, and presented their diagnoses to a physician overseeing them. The students also did rotations in the pharmacy for dispensing medications. “Essentially, we were running an urgent care clinic,” she said.

In her Abert Schweitzer Fellowship, Adegbite is promoting food access and nutrition information for refugee families through Freedom House Detroit. She has developed relationships with the families who are a step removed from the residential support for asylum seekers but not assimilated in American society. She remarked earlier in her fellowship that the experience also reminded her of her desire to serve vulnerable population through her medical education.

The Schweitzer Fellowship offers medical students and other health and human service graduate students an opportunity to realize their passions to care for the underserved. The year-long service project, coupled with monthly seminars on the core competencies of humanitarian work, helps the fellows revive their motivation for pursuing health careers.

For Adegbite, there is more education and residency training ahead, but she intends to incorporate travel medicine into her practice. She is inspired by Dr. Arpon Shahed, an MSUCOM who is affiliated with the Michigan State Institute for Global Health and medical director of an urgent care center in the Detroit area. He conducts medical missions in Haiti, Dominican Republic and Guatemala and is on the board of directors of Soaring Unlimited, a non-profit organization that focuses on sustainable development and medical care in Haiti.

Adediwura Adegbite is a medical student at Michigan State University Detroit Chapter Schweitzer Fellow