Over my time here in Barretos, I have had the opportunity to meet a lot of people involved in the hospital. To be honest, everyone here has been very excited to be able to share their work and culture with us, even as busy as they are. And then last week with our professor Veronica visiting, we had meetings with more people every day!

Now, I’m in a moment where I am thinking about my future every day. I just finished four years of Bioengineering at Rice, and am now doing a fifth year to do a second degree in Art History (yes, you read that right). I get pretty funny faces when I tell people that, but the truth is that I have a varied set of interests and I have been forturnate enough to pursue them. Even so, one of my goals for next year, other than completely graduating, is to find a more concrete direction for my professional life. I applied to come work at Barretos with hopes that it would help me find a direction, since I know at least I want to be involved with health and technology.

Turns out, I’m even more confused now.

Everything here is amazing — I like it all! At this hospital, there is an energy of constantly pushing the boundaries of technology and really putting in the effort for the patients. And the people we have met have each showed us how they manage to accomplish their seemingly impossible tasks with a very finite limit of resources and time.

 

However, since I can’t really describe everyone I have met, I will focus on the people that have really impacted me, in terms of both humans and professions —

 

Dr. Edmundo Mauad, Hospital de Câncer de Barretos

The principal director of the Prevention department, and also married to the daughter of the founder of the hospital, Dr. Mauad has been nothing but welcoming and attentive, always asking how our work and life are in Barretos. We have met with him several times, having a weekly meeting to update him and discuss ideas (when he is available). What has impacted me about him though, is his thirst and determination to find new solutions from all over the world. At every meeting, he has told us about some story about how he went to some hospital in some other country, found a cool idea, and came back and set upon implementing it right away. Last week, he told us about how he found an idea and started designing its implementation, all within the same week.

To me, that’s just awesome. Coming from a bicultural background, I’ve come to understand the value of borrowing ideas from different kinds of people. However, Dr. Mauad takes this to the next level, exploring ideas without hesitation and remaining insatiably determined to find new and better solutions.

 

Dr. Carlos Gourlat, Hospital de Câncer de Barretos

One of the doctors in the Prevention department, and also our mentor, Dr. Carlos has also been incredibly welcoming and attentive. Being our mentor, Megh and I have spent the most time with him, and will be soon heading to the Mato Grosso state in the north to travel with the mobile unit!

I haven’t really had much experience with doctors in the past, but one of the very characteristic things about Dr. Carlos is how he treats the people in the hospital — staff, doctors, nurses, and patients. We witnessed some small skin lesion excision surgeries, and every single patient that he treated left smiling. But before that, he was a family practitioner, completely devoting himself to helping out other people. Even now in his research at the hospital, his technology is the teledermatology system I mentioned earlier meant to expand the reach of preventative care. And now he’s working with us to improve that system with the Melacap attachment and app to make it even better and reach even more people.

 

Karen Francis, MD Anderson

This one may be cheating a little bit, but in the end I met her through this internship so I’m assuming it counts. Karen was here for a few days to set up preparations for an important meeting that is going to take place in Barretos in April 2016. However, we had a chance to spend some time with her and talk to her about her work.

And to be honest, it sounds fascinating. From what she told us, she is one of the Project Directors for Global Academic Programs at MD Anderson, and in that she manages relationships with some of MD Anderson’s sister institutions, one of which is of course, the Hospital de Câncer de Barretos. Her job then, takes her all over the world, managing institutions in Brazil, Chile, Peru, India, and Turkey, meeting all sorts of interesting people. And while she may not be leading research projects herself, she ensures that MD Anderson is partnered with other leading institutions to allow those projects to happen. Even then, she told us about some interesting projects and was keen on taking pictures of everything she could!

 

Now this list is absolutely not exhaustive by all means. We have met many other awesome people — the biostatistics group at the hospital, epidemiologists, hospital nurses, mobile unit nurses, community health agents, and other important staff at the hospital. Needless to say, it would be too much to talk about all of them.

The main reason I have mentioned these three is because in talking to them is when I have most identified myself in their work, opening possibilities for me while still lying within my interests. My particular problem is not identifying my interests — I know very well that I want to be involved in health and technology, particularly in diagnostics or prevention, for people and with people. My issue lies in finding a concrete path and position for which to aim.

As I mentioned, these three people are all involved in health and technology, one leading part of a health institution, one carrying out medical procedures, and one managing connections between leading institutions. The confusion arises from the fact that I could see myself doing all of these things, and enjoying it too. A lot.

I know I’m not alone in these confusions and doubts, and my experiences in meeting these people and seeing more of their work has been exactly what I was looking for in this internship, apart from the technology development and cultural exchange. I have now seen three more possible variations and paths in which to follow my interests. At some point I’ll just have to make a more concrete decision.

But I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. Now I’m going to go get some more coffee, maybe a slice of butter bread, and try to figure out why this one button on the app isn’t working.

 

Tchau a gente —

^ another super key phrase here

Tchau (chow) is bye, and a gente (ah shjen-chee) is a way to refer to people, like “guys.” In beautiful Texan speak, “Bye y’all.”