Promoting university social responsibility and contributing to improving the living conditions of the rural population are part of the objectives of “Proyecto Yucatán”, a joint effort between the University of Florida and UADY, whose students and teachers have been participating in the program for 14 years.
This activity is done once a year and reaches communities that previously requested services. On this occasion the attention was given to the populations of Muxupip, Tekantó, Tixkokob and San Antonio Xluch, where more than 1,500 inhabitants participated.
More than a hundred students from the area of Health Sciences traveled to these communities to bring general medicine services, nutrition, pediatrics and clinical analysis to the population most in need.
Saraí Catzín Rosado, a third-year medical student from Uady, said that this type of action greatly enriches her training and that the exchange with her colleagues in Florida allows her to acquire new knowledge, skills and strategies that are applied in that country.
Medical students participated in the Yucatan outreach. (PHOTO: UADY)
The young woman said that these activities are an opportunity to strengthen skills and reinforce vocations of service and that in the future, as professionals they can be more efficient in daily work.
In addition, she said, sharing knowledge with students from another country permits learning diversity about education, ideals and even about new technological tools and their applications in the area of health.
“As students we are very excited to enter into real learning scenarios, to have direct contact with the people most in need and to know that our knowledge is of great help to recover their health,” she said.
She added that as young people, and especially having the training provided by the UADY, “we have many ideas and we want the communities to know about these supports, but above all, that they can improve their quality of life.”
The young woman appreciated the confidence that the inhabitants of the rural communities give them because thanks to this, they can reinforce the acquired knowledge.
“Helping the community with cases of infectious and chronic degenerative diseases allows us to put into practice the values of quality, warmth and humanism,” she said.
Javier Cen Puerto, responsible for the Institutional Program of University Volunteering, recalled that these days have been held for 14 years in coordination with the University of Florida, with a high impact on the training of professionals.
This approach to the communities, he added, is of great importance because it contributes to solve health problems in populations where there is currently a shortage of medical services, or not all the population has a culture of prevention and health care.
He stressed that these services are of great help to families since they do not have to pay anything for medical consultation or medication, which is included in the conference as part of the commitment of university social responsibility.
He added that the consolidation of the program “allows us to think about immediate projects, such as establishing a mobility protocol between students and teachers so that young Yucatecans can carry out these services in communities in Florida.”
According to the students, the main sufferings in the communities served were respiratory infections and complications of osteo-arthritis, and only some cases of dengue and chikungunya.
For more information on Medical Tourism go to http://www.yucatanhealthcare.com/?lang=en
Source: UADY
