Fellow Bio:
Born in Romania, I moved to California in the tow of my parents when I was two. I was raised in the bay area suburbs and did my undergrad at UC Berkeley majoring in Molecular and Cell Biology with an emphasis in neuroscience. Upon graduation, I traveled to India where I volunteered at Aravind Hospital developing a rural health education project. I returned from India to complete an M.A. in Integrative Health Education at SFSU while working to develop CME for physicians. I am pleased to have just finished my first year at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

When I am not working, I can most often be found skiing in the Sierras, cooking, dancing, traveling, or most recently, learning Spanish.

Project Description:

1. Learn about the social, political and economic contexts that are important for understanding health issues in Ecuador.

2. Learn the key concepts used by cultural anthropologists to examine human and animal health and healing cross-culturally; and

3. Apply these concepts to specific cases in Ecuador by looking at how particular cultural groups (primarily highland and lowland Quichua) experience illness, health and their bodies within the broader contexts listed in objective one.

4. Explore infant and maternal healthcare delivery, examining the practice of prenatal care, delivery, and neonatal care.

5. Examine how traditional and western medicine come together in the maintenance of maternal and child health.

6. Develop my understanding of community information flows and creating sustainable change.

7. Enhance the quality of life of pregnant women and infants in the community.

8. Develop leadership skills in the area of community organization.

1. Identify a community receptive to such an assessment.

2. Evaluate the needs of the community.

3. Collect data regarding the current maternal and infant health care practices in this community.

4. Develop and implement a program that would address the needs of infants and pregnant women in the community.

5. Evaluate the efficacy of the program.

The goal is to improve certain measurable health outcomes of mothers and infants in a sustainable manner in a rural community in Ecuador.

Challenges:

1. Language barrier - I am in the process of learning Spanish. Also, as some of the older inhabitants of the village only speak Quichua, I will enlist translators in disussions with this population.

2. Resource and transportation costs - I hope to find organizations that would be willing to donate to the project and the community.

3. Understanding community organization - I will identify village leaders and interview them in order to identify the most effect approach for the project development.

Accomplishments

I spent six weeks in Ecuador studying indigenous healthcare and the Spanish language. In this time, I have identified a rural indigenous community with which to work and developed contacts in the area to persue the development of this project.

Challenges - Past:

One challenge is that there is a language barrier with certain populations of the community. The older generations only speak Quichua. To address this, we will be bringing in an interpreter for future stages of the project.

Comments:

Last update: June 26, 2006

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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