Improving Health by Serving Our Communities, Near and Far

Earlier this summer, David Lee, MD, an Emergency Department physician at both Page and Shenandoah Memorial hospitals, traveled to rural Kenya to take part in a very important ceremony – the opening of a school clinic at Nasaruni Academy for Maasai Girls. Dr. Lee first became familiar with the school in 2017 when he chaperoned his daughter Mariah’s Governor’s School trip, and he has served on its Board of Directors ever since.

Accompanying Dr. Lee and Mariah (now a medical student) on this trip were PMH ED nurse Amanda Painter, Logan Underwood, a traveling nurse who spent a year with PMH, Terry Fite, a retired nurse from Pennsylvania and Dr. Lee Robertson, an optometrist from Elkton.

The group christened the newly-opened clinic by performing over 300 medical checkups on the students and faculty. The jam-packed trip also included: a one-day trip to a remote medical camp where they cared for more than 500 patients; accompanying a local physician to visit mud huts in an even more isolated village; teaching first aid and Stop the Bleed classes to Nasaruni high school students; conducting a trauma lecture and workshop to local healthcare providers; visiting local pharmacies; and, meeting with community leaders. Amanda and Mariah had the added opportunity to make lasting impacts on some of the older female students by providing basic sex education, including their menstrual cycle, which is traditionally not taught to young women until well after menses begins. Through their efforts, they were also able to identify several survivors of physical and sexual assault and those with more acute healthcare needs requiring a higher level of medical attention. According to Dr. Lee, Nasaruni Academy has resources that the community does not, and through the school’s local Maasai leadership, they were able to connect each student with the help they needed.

Not ones to rest on their past success, the group is already planning for a trip back to the school and clinic next year!