As Queen鈥檚 alumni, we know it鈥檚 often the lessons learned outside the classroom (and sometimes even on the other side of the world!) that make the biggest difference.
Just ask Eve Purdy.
Eve is a fourth-year Queen鈥檚 medical student currently in Tanzania at a community health clinic founded by Dr. Karen Yeates, who is co-director of the Queen鈥檚 School of Medicine鈥檚 Office of Global Health along with Dr. Jenn Carpenter. Eve is spending three weeks caring for patients in the clinic, which started with a focus on empowering women through health, but now cares for families as well. Travelling to rural villages as part of a medical outreach team, she鈥檚 promoting health and wellness to patients at the clinic and in rural communities who, in many cases, have never been seen by a physician.
Pandemics and disease appear all around us today, and we understand now more than ever the growing importance of a global perspective on critical health issues. Queen鈥檚 offers this perspective to the next generation of health leaders like Eve and her colleagues.
In the last four years alone, close to 100 Queen鈥檚 students have learned firsthand what it鈥檚 like to practice medicine in a different culture, with scarce resources.
Medical student Amy Chen travelled to Tanzania in 2012. A Chinese-Canadian with a goal of becoming a family doctor, Amy wanted to learn how to adapt best practices to local beliefs and customs.
Amy helped to teach a group of Maasai women how to prevent skin irritation in their newborn babies, who are traditionally rubbed with oil rather than bathed in their first month of life. Amy suggested that they use a cloth to wipe the babies clean and keep the folds of skin dry and free of oil. The women, in turn, shared the practice with other new mothers in neighbouring villages.
Learning how to listen respectfully and adapt to new and unique situations makes Queen鈥檚 students better doctors, explains Dr. Yeates. In fact, 鈥渋t makes them better humans.鈥
Since returning home, Amy has applied the lessons she learned abroad to benefit Canadians in aboriginal and low-income communities. She is also very involved in the Queen鈥檚 MedExplore program, helping to expose local, underprivileged high school students to careers in the medical field. Learning experiences like these change lives 鈥 but one-of-a-kind opportunities like the Tanzania global health elective can鈥檛 happen without your support. I鈥檓 writing to ask you to help keep Queen鈥檚 spirit of initiative alive with a monthly gift today to the Queen's Fund.
Supporting Queen鈥檚 students as they become doctors is just one of the ways your gift to the Queen鈥檚 Fund can help. Your donation today can also help create a supportive environment for students on campus, and attract outstanding faculty like Dr. Yeates, who inspire and serve as positive role models.
When alumni come together to support the Queen鈥檚 Fund, we can, quite literally, change lives. And when we support students like Eve and Amy, working on behalf of poor and often marginalized families in Tanzania and other parts of the world, we鈥檙e very likely saving lives, too 鈥 both abroad and at home.
I鈥檝e already made my gift to help Queen鈥檚 students learn and discover, think and do. I hope you鈥檒l join me today. Cha Gheill!
Daniel Woolf, Artsci鈥80
Principal and Vice-Chancellor
