Public Health Internship - May 2010 in Rural Yunnan Province, China

  China

• Kunming: 
Kunming
• Rural Areas: 
Rural Areas

Term: Spring, Summer 
Duration of Program: 2-4 weeks
Dates: 5/9/2010 to 5/29/2010

Description: The May 2010 internship is a part of our work in Honghe State in Yunnan Province, located in south China.

This internship is an opportunity to gain hands on experience with public health and medical care in the developing world. Our interns will work with and assist the ChinaCal team as we travel into the Honghe State, a remote area of southeast Yunnan, performing research, screening for heart disease, treating cardiac ailments, and offering free general medical care to villagers who otherwise lack access to adequate health care. Interns will not only have the opportunity to travel to places where few Westerners have ever been, but they will get a chance to see from the ground level how a public health and primary care system operates in the developing world.

Our work in May will focus on pediatric screening for congenital heart disease in rural Hong He State. We will be accompanied by a pediatric cardiologist who will be be lending her expertise in diagnosis and clinical management of the children that we see and will be teaching us about pediatric congenital heart disease.

We will allot time for pediatric screening for congenital heart disease and arrange for screening children in elementary schools, clinics and village centers. We plan on screening at least 4000 children and expect to find about 30 cases of congenital heart disease. Interns, after training and certification, will actively participate in screening and assisting with the children.

Highlights: Honghe is located southeast of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan. Locations we will visit can be reached within eight hours by bus. The terrain is mountainous and hilly and many slopes are covered with rice terraces which have been present for thousands of years. The main features of its weather are mildness and humidity without strong winds. May is likely to be dry and mild. This area of Yunnan is demographically diverse, and its inhabitants include members of the the Yi, Hani and Miao minorities. Local cuisine is spicy and there are many unusual dishes like bamboo worms stir fried bees and various wild vegetables. We will be operating primarily in these ethnic minority villages, which are often some of the most destitute and undeveloped areas in all of China.

Qualifications: We require only that our interns have an interest in medicine in the developing world and that they are able to maintain a positive attitude in sometimes less-than-ideal living and working conditions. Candidates with backgrounds in clinical research and medicine will be given preference, but it is not a requirement. Preference will also be given to candidates with proficiency in Mandarin, but again this is not a requirement. Many of our past interns have had neither medical backgrounds nor proficiency in Mandarin.

Cost in US$: 2000 USD (tax deductible)

Experience Required: no

Typical Volunteer: Our previous interns and volunteers have been undergraduate, postgraduate, and medical students from around the world. Backgrounds vary from anthropological, international relations, public health, clinical medicine, and epidemiological.

Age Range: 18+

This Program is open to Worldwide Participants.

Application Process Involves:

• Other
• Phone Interview

Post-Program Services Include:

• Job and Internship Network

China California Heart Watch's Mission Statement: We, the China California Heart Watch, are a non-profit corporation working to further understanding and provide relief to the problems associated with hypertension and heart disease in rural western China. Based in Kunming, Yunnan's provincial seat, we work throughout the rural areas of Yunnan Province. We provide free training to village doctors in the diagnosis and treatment of hypertension and heart disease, we do research in some of the most remote villages in all of Yunnan, and we provide free, expert cardiac care at health clinics we host when on research trips. Hypertension is now one of the leading causes of death in China. Additionally, the prevalence of hypertension in rural areas is now reaching the same level as that in urban centers. China's rapidly developing economy and infrastructure is focused on the urban, industrial areas, often leaving behind a vacuum in rural areas in regards to the public health system. We attempt to mitigate the effects of this vacuum by providing free training and primary care to village doctors and citizens.

Year Founded: 2006