September 12, 2008

Student combines family history, learning experience

Mark DeFord's family, from Long Valley, N.J., has made seven house-building mission trips to Mexico. But this past summer, DeFord had a fellowship to study with Leslie Geddes, the Showalter Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biomedical Engineering.

With Geddes's encouragement, DeFord was accepted for a medical mission trip to Nigeria with Pro-Health International. DeFord is a certified emergency medical technician and will attend medical school after completing his undergraduate degree.

"I wanted to do a mission trip that would let me see how different medical treatment -- or lack of it -- affects people," DeFord said.

Pro-Health International is a Christian-based, nonprofit organization that focuses on improving the health of rural populations in Africa.

DeFord spent about a week at the organization's headquarters in Jos, working at a free HIV hospital and clinic. "Everywhere you looked were billboards that said, 'Find Your Status.'  They were hoping to get people to come in for AIDS testing and counseling," he said.

He then spent nine days in Edo state working with a mobile hospital. The hospital provided a wide range of care, including surgery, dentistry and ophthalmology.

DeFord worked with a group of 61 volunteers, 55 from Nigeria. Thirty-two were doctors. They saw 3,000 patients.

 "At 8 a.m. there would be a huge mass of people waiting to see the doctors. Consulting doctors would go through first, spending two or three minutes with each person. A lot of the people weren't ill. They just wanted to take advantage of the medical care being offered. Those people were given vitamins. The rest were referred to other doctors for treatment," DeFord said.

The average salary in the rural areas of Nigeria is about $1 a week, DeFord said.

"But the people are friendly, happy, relaxed despite their poor conditions."

He said the people he encountered were engaging and interested in politics. But the medical care conditions were more than inadequate.

"Some patients couldn't have surgery they needed because they had to come up with their own replacement blood, and they couldn't find donors," DeFord said.

He said the trip made him even more determined to continue in medicine.

"It gave me a perspective on how difficult health care can be in some parts of the world," DeFord said. "I think I got as much out of the trip as the people there did,"

DeFord, whose father, John, studied under Geddes in the 1980s, is back on campus for his senior year. He hasn't yet decided where he'll attend medical school.

Writer: Judith Barra Austin, (765) 494-2432, jbaustin@purdue.edu

Source: Mark DeFord, (330) 322-7021, mdeford@purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

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