February 2023 Still Point

Submitted by: LMU-DCOM (Harrogate)

Author: Audrey Burnette, OMS-II

Title: "The little OMT I know"

It was an uncomfortable heat. The type of heat that makes you want to lay in an ice bath for hours. The sun beamed down on me, and I could feel the SPF I had applied that morning dripping from my face. I was already annoyed about losing my hat earlier in the trip and internally groaned at the sunburn I was bound to have.

We drove past fields of fruit trees. It was an uncommon view for a girl who grew up in a city. Turning my head to appreciate the view, I noticed the homes becoming more humble as we made our way up the mountain. There was an eagerness around me. My peers had a feeling it was going to be a good trip days ago when we landed in the Dominican Republic, but it was today of all days we knew we could make the greatest impact to a well-deserving community.

“Americans! Americans!” I hear in the distance. The locals waved excitedly at us as we drove past. Their excitement feeding further into my own.

It had been a rough past few days for me after a broken foot and exhaustion from prior clinic days, yet here I was feeling rejuvenated just from their voices and an increased desire to serve. At the same time, I wondered, could I do anything impactful as a first-year medical student? Will I hinder the more experienced team members around me?

The trucks rolled to a stop and the lack of electricity and running water in the area surrounding us was evident. Our flatbed truck had carried not only us, but the medications and equipment we needed to open a make-shift clinic in a local schoolhouse. The language barrier between the Spanish-speaking Dominicans and Creole-speaking Haitians was clear from the moment we stepped off the truck. Doubt was clouding my thoughts. Could I make a difference today?

After finally setting up, I looked outside at the lines which had formed. They assigned me to do well-child checks and there I was doing bare bone medicine with my two years of high-school Spanish. After their physical exams, each child got a bottle of vitamins, a pill to deworm them, and an Oreo cookie. Afterwards, I saw children as young as 8 and 9 walking with pickaxes and machetes on their way to work in the fields. Was this their only childhood? Their perseverance and resilience amazed me.

Next up, I was with working with adults. Their number one complaint was back pain. All the years of working in the fields had caught up with them. But what I heard from the more experienced missionaries is that there was little we could do other than give them Ibuprofen for the pain. I thought of the children that just left my table and looked at the patients in front of me. Was there anything I could do?

Like a light bulb over me, I knew something from my 1^st year of medical school that could help—OMT.

I doubted myself. Other than my peers and family, I had never performed OMT on anyone else. Thinking back to my Introduction to Osteopathy Lecture in my first week of medical school, I was reminded me that all I needed were my hands. My professor’s voice rang in the back of my head telling me to “trust my hands” and “feel for the dysfunction.”

Gaining the guts and words of encouragement from the other osteopathic students next to me, I decided that it couldn’t hurt to just try. In all honestly, it seemed like a no brainer to use OMT when doing bare bones medicine.

A few patients in and in my very broken Spanish, I gathered that my Muscle Energy and Counterstain did indeed provide some of the field workers a tad bit of relief. Each time I felt a hypertonic muscle relax; I felt my heart leap with joy. First year of medical school was already paying off.

I look back on that day with nostalgia. Delighted and humbled by the experience, I hope to go on more medical mission trips in the future and am proud to one-day soon join the ranks alongside other osteopathic physicians.