Fellow Bio:
As of August 2, 2002, a bonafide resident of Wisconsin! I moved from Durango, Colorado to Madison last year to work in a hospital-based Complementary Medicine clinic and experience life in the Midwest. I grew up in Estes Park, Colorado and earned my undergraduate degrees in Spanish and French at the University of Denver. I became interested in medicine during my senior year of college, after working in a family medical clinic in Estes Park and translating for non-English speaking patients. My community service experiences in Colorado include translating at a Salud Family Health Clinic, volunteering in the HIV/AIDS clinic at Children's Hospital in Denver, community tutoring/teaching in Spanish, French and Scottish Highland Dancing, and teaching in Chihuahua Mexico through a YMCA exchange program. This past year in Madison I volunteered at the Willy Street Co-op and as a Spanish translator at a local acupuncture clinic. I plan to continue my involvement with Spanish-speaking communities here in Wisconsin and after medical school while serving with the National Health Service Corps.

I am currently working on two (and a half) LOCUS projects. The first project involves working with Adam Marks and other LOCUS fellows on establishing a sustainable summer experience program between the UW-Madison Medical School and the San Lucas Health Project (SLHP) in San Lucas Toliman, Guatemala. I spent most of July in Guatemala (with a quick side-trip to Honduras to make contacts for future health projects there) with Adam Marks and April Herlache. The main forcus of our trip was to make contacts and do a trial run of a summer experience with the SLHP. I lived in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala for a week (Adam and April were there for two weeks), living with a wonderful Guatemalan family and attending the Miguel Angel Asturias Spanish School to learn medical Spanish. Adam, April and I then traveled to San Lucas Toliman, a small town on the shore of Lago Atitlan, where we spent two weeks volunteering through the Mission of San Lucas. I spent the first week working in the Mission's Medicinal Plant Garden. I learned the particulars of the 67 most commonly used plants (the garden currently has 128 different species), as well as the history and philosophy of the garden project and about the most common traditional illnesses (e.g. "empacho" and "nervios"). During the second week I worked with Adam and April organizing the SLHP clinic pharmacy, helping 11 year olds learn first-aid fracture and wound care, conducting physical exams at a rural elementary school and delivering primary healthcare during two traveling outreach clinics to rural areas outside of San Lucas Toliman.

My second project involves working with Melissa Bachhuber and Sarah Fox (Med 3) on developing and implementing a Mindfulness Meditation Class for low-income, Spanish-speaking women in Madison. The class (an 8 week series) will address emotional well-being, including stress and depression. We are working with Dr. Beth Potter at the UW Wingra Clinic and Katherine Bonus at the UW Center for Mindfulness. Melissa and I are also working on a "mini" project involving a series of panel discussions about student experiences with healthcare delivery in rural international settings. We are planning the first panel for September 23, 2003. The panel will be composed of students who traveled to various countries in Latin America and will focus on the challenges of healthcare delivery in the rural areas in which they worked this summer. Depending on the feedback from the first panel, we will be organizing future panels involving other topics and countries.

The overall goal for the SLHP project is to establish a sustainable summer experience for UW LOCUS students in San Lucas Toliman, Guatemala. We will be sharing our experiences in Guatemala with other medical students this year during the upcoming panel discussion on the challenges of healthcare delivery in rural international settings and workshops for the students who will travel to Guatemala next summer. The other goals of this project include providing the SLHP with a continuous supply of student summer volunteers and helping other students gain experience living and working with underserved communities in Guatemala, as well as strengthening their Spanish skills. We feel that this project will have a positive impact on our local community, as students will return from Guatemala with enhanced leadership and language skills and an understanding of health in a cultural context that will help them to better work with all communities. In addition, I hope to expand and apply what I learned about medicinal plants to our local Latino community. I plan to survey Southside MEDIC patients on their knowledge and use of medicinal plants and then compile a list of medicinal plant resources and treatments to be given to patients during clinic.

The overall goal for the Mindfulness Meditation project is to empower low-income, Spanish-speaking women in Madison with mindfulness skills to reduce their medical illness. accomplishments = I have changed and focused (a bit more!) my projects since my last report. I definitely have a better understanding of the importance of focusing projects (not biting off a lot more than than I can handle) and all that we can accomplish when working together on projects. I was able to greatly enhance my communication and networking skills this summer in Honduras and Guatemala and I gained a great appreciation for developing and implementing community projects in other countries (a very difficult undertaking due to the lack of funding, support and communication). challenges-past = Adam, April and I encountered the challenge of not having a physician with us in San Lucas Toliman (and therefore we did not have an organized volunteering schedule). This made it difficult to volunteer with the SLHP. Fortunately, we were able to join a group from the University of Nebraska Medical School for a day and work with Dr. Paul Wise (Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston MA) for two days with the SLHP traveling outreach clinic. Although at times frustrating, I think our lack of physician and organized agenda allowed (at times, forced) us to be creative and seek out opportunities that we probably wouldn't have otherwise. Melissa and I have had quite a bit of difficulty in securing enough funding for the Mindfulness project. This is encouraging us to look into various community grants and has been a good, realistic learning experience on the challenges of getting a new project up and running.

We may encounter more difficulty in funding the Mindfulness Project. However, we are looking into various small community project grants and will hopefully be able to fund the first class series by next summer or fall.

I have never before written and submitted a survey for an IRB approval...should be a learning experience! I plan to seek advice from healthcare providers within the Latino community when writing the survey.

Melissa and I have already encountered the challenges of scheduling a bunch of med students to meet and discuss the panel discussion series...we plan to keep sending emails and talking with students in class to encourage them to help us and participate in the discussions.

Time is the most needed resource (for all the projects)! Additional grants to provide the funding for the Mindfulness Project is need as well.

I will also need to continue collaborating with Adam, April, Melissa, Dr. Potter and others to achieve the above-described goals.

Comments:

THANK YOU, LOCUS for the opportunity to travel and learn in Guatemala and Honduras this summer!!! I learned so much, met wonderful people in several different communities and have returned to Madison very inspired to continue on the challenging path of medicine and working with underserved communities. !MIL GRACIAS!

August 31, 2003

Graduation Requirements Progress Chart
If you complete the requirements outlined below, you will graduate as a LOCUS fellow.

A indicates the item has been completed.

Completed	When	What	On-line
	Year 1: Beginning of Semester 2	New Project Report	Submit Report
	Year 2: Beginning of Semester 1	Project Update	Submit Update
	Year 2: Beginning of Semester 2	Project Update	Submit Update
	Year 3: Beginning of third year	Project Update	Submit Update
	Year 4: August of fourth year	2-3 page final summary of project that includes a reflective evaluation of the project process	N/A
	Ongoing	Participate in program evaluation (written and/or focus group)	View Options
	By the end of fourth year	Select poster, presentation, paper, creative option or your own idea	View Options

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