I cannot believe it’s already July 5th. Time flies when you’re having fun, and it honestly feels like I just got to Barretos yesterday. It’s been a little more than a month since I’ve gotten here, so I thought I’d take the time to reflect on what my goals were for this experience and the things I’ve learned since I’ve gotten here.

Professionally, we had a few main goals when we got to Barretos. The first was to get feedback on the technologies we brought with us (a diabetic ulcer woundcare model and a syringe dosing clip). Second, we wanted to conduct a needs assessment to find potential projects we could bring with us back to Rice. Third, we wanted to find projects we could work on while here that would allow us to make a difference at the hospital we’ve grown to appreciate so much.  These endeavors have gone extremely well. Patricia and I attended a “Diabetes Day” clinic at a local hospital where we got a lot of feedback, actually teaching patients with our wound care model. We’ve found quite a few potential needs we’re bringing back to Rice, and we’ve been working on projects to help the hospital as well – a palliative care feedback survey application, a spreadsheet to organize patient information, among others.

Personally, the main takeaway I hoped to gain from this trip was experience. That’s pretty vague, but I know my short answer would’ve been something ambiguous. It’s ambiguous because the lessons you gain from traversing cultures are never those you expect. The obvious experiences I wanted to gain are related to what you see and hear everyday. I wanted to learn about cancer prevention in a lower resource setting, I wanted to learn some Portuguese, I wanted to get a sense for Brazilian culture. Implicitly, though, I wasn’t sure what “experience” meant – I just wanted to see something new, be given a dataset of sensations and perspectives with which I could construct some perspective.

In the month that I’ve been here, though, I’ve learned a lot more than these explicit lessons. I’m gradually gaining a sense for things that are more difficult to put your finger on, like the pace of the hospital. Or traditional greetings. The way people here like to spend their time, and the healthcare challenges that people here face everyday. I’m not sure where I expected to learn these lessons, but I’ve gotten amazing insight by being allowed to travel all over the healthcare system in these past few weeks. Based in cancer prevention, I’ve seen mobile units in nearby cities, I’ve visited multiple patients’ homes. I’ve seen patients brought to tears in front of me and I’ve seen patients rejoicing. It’s hard to pin down the exact lesson that these experiences give you – they’re experiences that you keep with you for a long time to think about and grow with. At a raw level though, the pure emotion both positive and negative that I’ve experienced from patients is enough to have given me an extremely meaningful experience.