SOUTHAMPTON MEDICAL SOCIETY
President: Dr Nigel Dickson FRCGP
A meeting of the Southampton Medical Society was held on the 16th of January 2023 . The President was in the chair. The minutes of the last meeting were approved. The President introduced the speaker, Dr Josh Gray, who was one of the Foott Memorial Grant winners who spoke about his experiences on his elective. Dr Gray spent his elective with the Refugee Health Alliance Clinic in Tijuana, Mexico. He said the town is one of the most dangerous in Mexico due to the drug gangs. It is also a centre for refugees. They come mainly from Haiti, about 80%, and 20% from other countries of Central America. The Haitians make a punishing journey via northern Brazil and travelling north through Central America. They are severely abused all the way. Many who come to the clinic have been refused entry to the US at the border or deported from the US. In general the citizens of Mexico accept the refugees though.
The refugees are in very poor health; unvaccinated, undernourished and suffering many diseases. They consist of families, lone children, pregnant women and all are homeless.
The Refugee Health Alliance was formed in 2018 in response to this medical crisis. They have a team of 2 salaried doctors of registrar level of experience, 2 medical students, 2 translators and a team of midwives. The resources are very limited and so the number of blood tests and imaging investigations are severely limited. The doctors rely on traditional history taking and examination! Josh said his clinical acumen improved enormously from this experience and that he became such a much better doctor.
He described a day in his life there. Every morning there was a massive queue of women, children and men waiting. He would only manage to see about 10 patients a day. The consultations were all in Spanish [in which he is only moderately fluent] as very little English is spoken. He was well supervised. He saw severe motor cycle accident cases, “jungle” bites, Leishmaniasis, a case of dextrocardia, a case of leiomyosarcoma and numerous ill homeless children. The refugees often want a medical certificate stating they need treatment in the USA as this can be a mode of entry there.
The experience has been a profound benefit for his doctoring skills. Being a junior doctor in the National Health Service, during this last 6 months, is ‘mindless’ in comparison.
He has every intention of returning to Mexico to help them out again.
He thanked the Society for his grant and said he would not have been able to make the journey without it.
The President thanked Josh very much for his interesting presentation.
The meeting was then closed due to technological failure.